Growing Pains
by LilacsBloom
Summary: She and Luke were all that was left, with every day a struggle to survive and reach a place of safety in the north that was too many miles away to count. So often Clementine had seen it happen, death claiming the lives of friends or complete and utter strangers, the lives she failed to save…and now, it was her turn.
1. Chapter 1: Frostbite

A/N: Growing Pains was written while the episodes of The Walking Dead Game Season 2 were still being released. The first chapter debut on March 12th 2014 a week after A House Divided, and the final chapter released on July 6th 2014 a month or so before Amid The Ruins. This story was written out of my love for the game, and coming back to do the revision that I did, it means more to me now than it did when I first wrote it.

This is not a what-if story on my version of a Season 2. Although Growing Pains takes much of this storyline from Season 1, and through most of Episodes 1 and 2 of the second season with minor alterations, it follows it's own A/U [alternate universe]. My aim was to write a buddy adventure on my two favorite characters and their sibling dynamic from Season 2.

So on one final note: _This is going to hurt._

* * *

**_The Walking Dead_**_**  
**_**_Growing Pains_**

_Chapter 1: Frostbite_

* * *

The droplets fell on the fresh snow, one after the other, the deep red of their color standing out against the pure white of those woods. All she could do is stare at them; watching as more and more of the dark liquid dripped onto the ground, her insides feeling numb, her breaths shallow.

Clementine had lost.

It was over.

Death was a usual occurrence in her life. Before she was seven, her grandparents on both her Mom's and Dad's sides were gone. Every one of their funerals she had been to, still remembering so clearly the sad faces, the crying from well rehearsed speeches, to the flowers and the coffin…four times. Then there was her pet hamster, Bubbles, whom she'd buried at the end of the garden, after he sneaked out from his cage in the day and got electrocuted when he had chewed through a live wire. Mom offered to buy her a new one, but that had only made Clementine sadder. She couldn't replace her grandparents, and to her, Bubbles was no different back then.

Not long after her hamster went, had the world fallen apart. Her babysitter got sick from a_creep_ to have bitten her arm, and both Clementine's parents were miles away from home. The only people she could trust were a bunch of strangers, who soon became her new family over those months surviving together. Yet Clementine couldn't let go; she kept wanting to leave their shelter in the Motor Inn to get to Savannah and find her Mom and Dad. When they finally did get out with no choice in the matter, their numbers declined; friends were lost or abandoned so quickly with little time to mourn, until eventually even Lee, the man who had found and rescued her, was dead too. Then in time so was Omid, Christa, their baby boy…

For Clementine, death followed her everywhere, killing those she cared about, to the people who deserved it, or perhaps didn't. Even when she was to gain some security in a new group after so long, and fought to gain the trust of all of them, they too were lost. One by one, each picked off through the struggles of this world that dwindled them down to a small few, that when the winter finally set in and the heavens opened up in an endless snowfall, only Clementine and Luke remained.

All they could do was keep moving, to find safety in the land that kept trying to kill them at every turn. A community up in Wellington where hope still survived; the news of a place spread through word of mouth alone among other survivors. There was no certainty any of it was true, or if it would still be waiting there for them at the end of it all. But those long miles they continued to trek through the heavy snow, scavenging for supplies in the homes and buildings of the deceased, while if often, avoiding the living and dead.

Bad luck it was that the latter was to finally be Clementine's downfall.

It wasn't really their fault. The pair of them were often careful, making sure each building they checked was secure and infected-free and keeping their wits about them everywhere that they went. The problem for them was that they'd focused too much on what they could see around them, not _beneath_ them.

The snow had fallen so much, nearly reaching up to Clementine's knees, so it made traveling difficult. The only way she could keep up with Luke was by walking in his footsteps with the trail he made through the snow. Even still, she was slowing him down, and the weather wasn't letting up. It'd gotten so cold, the dawn doing nothing to warm her or her cold hands which were naked of gloves. Clementine did have a pair before, those purple knitted ones with the butterflies on them that she had really liked, but, she'd forgotten them when a large pack of walkers had found the place that they'd been hiding in hours before daylight, and in their rush to get out of there, grabbing their coats and gear, her gloves had been left behind.

Because of this, Clementine had needed to keep both her hands inside her coat pockets most of the way, blowing on them in white smokes of vapor after each time she'd needed to climb over a fence or under some barbed wire. It was this reason of sustaining the heat in her hands that she had fallen over, her balance unsaved as she was unable to grab onto a nearby tree when her foot caught on a root hidden under the snow. And with the weight added to her from her backpack, it brought Clementine down even harder onto the ground.

Suffice to say, if her hands weren't cold before, then they were after her little fall and having them burrowed deep into the snow.

"You alright kiddo?" Luke had asked, her friend already having backtracked to go help her. Clementine refused that hand offered to her, choosing to get up on her own as she brushed the snow off from her clothes and straightened her baseball cap, before rubbing her numb fingers.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she'd answered, despite still being so tired and hungry and wishing she was out of the cold and someplace warm. They hadn't even eaten breakfast yet, or what could be called a breakfast with those cans of food on them. To be traveling without a meal in her belly, was not something Clementine favored. She was relieved when Luke mentioned they'd tried to find someplace to stop soon once it was brighter and they were out of the woods with no puns intended, so they could rest a little and have a bite to eat.

"So, on the menu today we got corn, corn and corn; take your pick."

The upbeat question by her friend, or the _attempt_ to be upbeat, it didn't sit well with her. The man had walked in silence a couple of steps ahead of her, trudging on through the snow as he'd cut a trail for them within those unusually quiet woods, with not a critter or bird to be seen or heard.

"Chocolate," Clementine had answered.

"Hmm…alright, corn it is!" Luke said, with a smile over his shoulder to her.

Wearisomely Clementine had sighed, feeling it too early for jokes. It was after that she'd nearly tripped again, and while Luke was in the amidst of reminding her to watch herself next time…Clementine had seen it, a figure moving out from the trees on their left, stumbling right between them as it went for her friend, only to fall flat on its face in the snow.

"Behind you! Look out!"

It was a walker, joined shortly by five more that just seemed to appear out of nowhere as if the dead were camouflaged in those woods. Those walkers had all soon caught sight of the pair standing there unprepared, as if triggered by their presence. Before even she and Luke had time to do anything, more rotten bodies were stirring from under the snow, and another six or seven other walkers rose up, groaning hungrily as they slowly crawled or dragged their way towards her and Luke.

Within moments they'd been surrounded by a whole load of them, with nowhere to run.

"You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me," Luke cursed under his breath from beside her, the putrid smell of the dead filling the cold morning air. Few of the walkers resembled their once humans selves, being that they were far down on the decaying walker-chain, from peeling flesh and exposed bones, missing jaws and limbs...but still...

A pistol had been forced into Clementine hands as the dead had begun to box the pair in, the gun Luke kept on him that had barely half a clip left.

"Take it," he'd ordered her, pulling out the machete from the sheath on his back. "Make em' count and stay close; I'll try cuttin' us a way through!"

But Luke couldn't, because it hadn't been as simple as that. There'd been too many walkers, with no simple escape plan, that all she and Luke could do was fight. So they did. Clementine had gunned down six of them, doing her best to fight her nerves and the cold as so not to waste a single bullet. Luke did his part too, slicing the heads off of many of them, while pushing or kicking back any that got too close. One walker nearly took a chunk out of his neck, grabbing at him from behind by his rucksack, but Clementine caught it just in time, pulling the trigger and blowing open the back of the walker's head in a burst of red and gray, its frail corpse falling lifeless as Luke shoved it away.

That was the last bullet she had.

The gun _clicked_ empty the next time Clementine went to use it on another walker Luke was quick to take out…the same time that she had felt something grab at her ankle.

A legless walker had crept up on her from out of the snow, its bony fingers latching onto her leg as it'd been about to take a bite. Clementine had stomped her foot down on its head, succeeding in stunning it briefly with a crack of its skull, but in doing so she was brought down in the struggle.

"Help! _Help!_"

She wasn't loud enough. Luke hadn't heard her, too overwhelmed by the dead trying to get at him to have even seen her go down, or the legless corpse that was on top of her trying to bite down on her face. There were too many walkers between them for her friend to have even reached her, so with nothing but that empty gun to defend herself with, Clementine had slammed the weapon into the walker's skull, striking it again and again. Blood splattered out across her face and coat with each blow, until enough damage was dealt to the walker's brain that it was reduced to nothing more than a twitching corpse by the time she pushed the thing off her.

By then, the last of the walkers were taken care of, the final one beheaded by Luke's machete as the exhausted man had soon bent over hands on knees, catching his breath in the aftermath of that gory massacre they had brought to that once winter wonderland.

"Clem...? _Clem!_" No longer swamped by the undead to have separated them, she had heard Luke come running as soon as he'd seen her standing there idly over the walker she had killed; that bloodstained pistol still tightly gripped in her hand. Only when Luke grabbed her shoulders did she finally snap out of her daze. "Clementine! Kid, are you alright!?"

In that moment, all she could see were the faces of the people to have died. It was Duck's memory Clementine focused on the most, recalling how he went quiet after he'd gotten bitten during the raid, that he had never said a single word to her or anyone else after that, not even when Katjaa had carried him away into the woods, and the two of them never came back. Was it fear that had made Duck lose his voice, fear that stopped him from saying anything whenever situations were too much for his innocent mind to take? If it was, then Clementine finally understood what it felt like to be in his shoes.

She couldn't bring herself to tell Luke, could only sniffle a sob as she'd bowed her head, allowing for him to figure it out on his own. And Luke did soon enough, quick to take hold of her wrist, to where he noticed the blood dripping from her left hand, riddled deep all over from human teeth marks.

"I'm sorry..."

It was all Clementine could say.

* * *

They found a river not far from where the walkers had attacked. Most of the water's edge was frozen up in a thin sheet of ice, but the river still flowed as it should and would no doubt be lethal if either one tried to cross it to reach the farmlands on the other side. It was too cold to step in, and yet, Clementine thought about it, that maybe it would be better if she jumped in and let herself freeze to death.

She didn't want to end up like the others, and the alternatives weren't looking bright.

Luke showed no intention of having them take the plunge. Instead he was crouched down by the river, breaking some of the ice away to give him room in the water to clean up the machete caked in the blood of the undead. Meekly Clementine sat herself down on one of those large rocks while she watched him, not even bothering to brush aside the snow that covered that stone or wipe the blood off from her face where tears silently fell. Her hand burned with pain, the injury slowly bleeding drop by drop with no signs of stopping, and Clementine still chose to do nothing about it.

What did it matter anymore what happened to her, or what she did? She was a lost cause now. The sight of her chewed up hand reminded her of that. There was no magical cure that would save her and she wasn't immune. Nobody ever was. But maybe what scared Clementine most, other than just dying, was that Luke hadn't said much since he'd discovered the bite. She remembered too well how he'd reacted when both he and Pete saved her from the walkers in the forest so many months before; the pain of when she was dropped to the ground still vivid as was her frustration at the distrust that group had for her at being unable to believe a child's words that she wasn't bitten, or to side with her completely. And now here they were again, stuck in that same crisis, except now the threat was real and no dog was to blame.

Either Luke would leave her, or he would put an end to it like Nick was willing to do, a rifle and lantern on the kitchen table, just waiting for the word from Carlos so she could be taken out from the cabin and, and _shot._ Even thinking of her friend turning on her like that, Clementine wasn't sure if she should just get up and go…or let it happen so she didn't suffer like Lee.

Right then and there as that thought crossed her mind, Luke spoke. But his words weren't of guilt, or apologies for not being there when she needed him, Luke gave out a direct order.

"Getcha coat off."

Clementine blinked the tears out of her eyes, trying to not to sound sad. "What? But it's freezing."

"Don't matter; just take it off and roll your sleeve up. We ain't got no time to be wastin' here." There was an urgency in the way Luke said it, just as how he was when he'd been in a hurry to get them down to that river. Clementine assumed it was because he was concerned about more walkers showing up from her firing that gun and didn't want them getting swamped a second time. But it wasn't that, no. Only then when Luke lifted the machete out from those waters, the blade washed clean of blood and gleaming in that dawn's light, that Clementine gripped the wrist of her injured hand as the fear closed around her heart with suffocating force, sending the blood pumping faster through her veins at finally realizing what it was that he was planning to do.

"No…no! _**No**_!"

"Clementine-"

"You're not taking my arm off! You can't!" she cried, almost tripping back on those stones as she retreated away in a fight or flight state, despite the idea of hurting her friend being something Clementine could never think of doing, nor did she have anywhere to escape to. "Please don't cut it off, don't! It won't work, Luke!"

"It's the only fightin' chance you got left. I..._fuck!_ We gotta try something okay? I don't know what else to do!" The grief on Luke's face was all too real. Yet he didn't let go of that blade, despite looking stressed out as hell about the whole thing. Luke never had been good at masking his emotions, always an open book. "It might not be too late. If we catch it now, maybe-"

"It _won't _work! It _never _works!" Clementine repeated futilely, her vision becoming bleary as she started shaking. "Cutting it off won't fix anything! You'll only make it worse!"

"But it might save you, Clem! The cousin, Pete said-"

"I don't care what Pete said!" She yelled. "It killed him! I-It killed Lee! I've seen it! I've seen what happens!"

Cutting off the limb bitten from a walker, it never did any good. Lee had tried it, chopped off most of his arm and he still died in the end, unable to walk another step and escape with her out of Savannah. Pete too, he had just bled to death in the back of that truck over the belief that he would survive a walker bite by sawing off his own leg. Pete had died in agony, the saw still wedged halfway in his thigh bone when Clementine left him in that delivery truck, her clothes covered in his blood as she'd ran through those woods in a panic back to the cabin. Clementine didn't want that end. She didn't want to go out like that! Once you were bitten, that was it. So what of this cousin it'd worked for. How could she trust that old man's words after what she had seen with her own two eyes? And it was her body, her arm! Her own life that was at stake!

Luke had quickly moved forward and made a grab for her arm when she'd gone to back away again. The machete went clanging down on the snow and rocks of that riverbank as he'd struggled to get control of the situation and calm her down. "Clem! Just quit it will ya! _Stop!_"

She'd pulled at her arm to try wrenching it away, stomping and kicking at her friend's legs and feet, unable to use her free hand to break his grip on her as it was the one the walker had chewed on, droplets of blood from it landing everywhere on both snow and stones in her frenzy to break free.

The tears fell uncontrollably, Clementine cried out in vain. "I don't want to lose my arm! Just leave me alone!"

"Stop it! Stop talkin' like that! Fuckin' hell you're just a little kid!" Luke had said, outright shouting at her as he refused to let go through everything that she did. Those gloved hands seized her shoulders as he went kneeling down in front of her, his voice full of pleading as she shook her. "Clementine, look at me! _LOOK!"_

She hadn't right away, still running on the impulse to flee. But those words knocked some sense into her, enough to prevent her lashing out anymore at her friend, who looked racked with as much pity and guilt as he had when he and the others had her locked inside that shed back at the cabin all that time ago. It was in those brown eyes, Clementine saw something else within that familiar gaze.

_Fear._

"I know you're scared, alright, _I know_. But we gotta try, Clem. If there's any chance of this workin' we gotta take it. I ain't lettin' you kick the bucket too. You owe it to yer folks not to go quittin' on them! Please kid!"

Mom and Dad, for months Clementine dreamed of seeing them again, only to find them in that street, turned into one of those things. They weren't a perfect family. Sometimes they didn't always get along; tantrums and arguments were as frequent as the smiles and laughter. Yet her parents, she never doubted once that they loved her. No matter how bossy or overprotective, Mom and Dad always wanted what was best for her and so had Lee when he had stepped in to take care of her and became that third parent to her. If any one of them were still alive and here with her now, they wouldn't want her to give up. They'd take that chance to save her if they could, like she would do if it'd been them who needed saving.

What if there was a chance and it wasn't too late? Could she really go that far, losing an arm? What if all just went wrong again, like with Pete, like Lee...?

Whimpering Clementine looked down at her injured hand, the sight of it torn down to the bone and the pain resonating from it making her insides churn. "But you don't know for sure if it'll do anything for me. You don't."

The man hesitated, that sadness in his eyes revealing clear he wasn't one to give false hope in that moment. It resonated in him, that uncertainty, as did the truth.

"No, I don't. But-"

A sound from not far off interrupted Luke, the two of them in almost perfect sync looking out at the woods they had previously run from. It was the sounds of the dead, long starved moans and mindless wails resounding over and over in their endless search for living flesh. No walkers could be seen, although for how much longer couldn't be said for sure, only, that it wouldn't be safe here forever. Gunfire attracted them. No matter how far away the shots were fired, they always showed up.

Luke gripped at her shoulders firmly, turning back at her. "Look, we don't have time to be talkin' about this. It's now or never, you understand? I ain't no doctor, not like Carlos. Lurker bite or no lurker bite, it's gotta go; now you with me on this or not?"

That walker from before had shredded her hand up like the blades of a blender. Without a decent surgeon or a doctor, she'd get gangrene. Whether or not she was bitten by the undead, it was fatal left untreated. Clementine was going to lose that hand either way, that's what Luke was getting at. Cutting it off, it had to be done. If she had a chance to make it through this, then she had to do it. Even if she was scared, Clementine had to try! If Lee could be brave enough to go through with it, then so could she.

Twigs snapped in the distance, the groans of walkers getting closer, with time slipping away with what last possible chance she might have of living to fight for another day.

Clementine gulped, and gave her friend a weak nod.

"Okay."

A few minutes, that's all they had to cut it off, bandage it and go. The cold and fear, they weren't the best put together, not when hearing the slowly approaching threat of the dead nearby or facing the daunting aspect of losing that hand. Clementine was shaking so much that just the task of unzipping her coat proved difficult. In his rucksack Luke had gone about tearing up one of his shirts to use as makeshift bandages, not having any left in that near empty first-aid kit of theirs to contain only a few band-aids and disinfectant wipes. A great deal of use those would be for her now.

Clementine winced on tugging her damaged hand through the sleeve of her coat after sliding off her backpack, acknowledging with a stolen breath that soon most of that arm of hers would be gone and she wouldn't feel it anymore; a single realization that further intensified both fear and panic into a corrupt mass within her belly, so overpowering that Clementine thought she was going to be sick.

_'Be_ _like_ _Lee, just be like Lee_.'

The bare-bones of a skeleton walker stumbled slowly out from among the trees, some twenty or so meters away within the woods. It hadn't noticed them yet, though soon would, very soon. Luke had spotted the walker too and hurried; he was quick to brush the snow off one of the large rocks with the smoothest surface.

"Rest yer arm down on there." Luke said.

The rock felt ice-cold against Clementine's skin through the fabric of her sleeve, as did the winter air that ate away at what warmth her body had from where she sat on the stony ground on her knees, the snow gradually beginning to melt, seeping into her jeans. Her teeth chattered, every hair on her neck standing on end, quickly missing the shelter her coat once gave from the elements.

But it wasn't just the cold that left her shivering. She was scared, _terrified_. The fast beating of her heart increased when Luke pulled up the sleeve of her striped shirt and tied the tourniquet high on her left arm. He gripped her wrist securely, a drum feeling like it was banging inside her ribcage that would break at any second and she would die.

Clementine looked up at her friend, doing nothing to hide the fear on her face or the tears. It wasn't any easier for Luke either, those brows furrowed in sympathy for her when their eyes briefly met, appearing just as scared. He was probably wishing that it was the other way around, that it was him dealing with this rather than her, like he had once said to Clementine when he told her of the time he'd lost his parents, burdened with the same looks of regret whenever another member of their group had been claimed victim to the dead or to the living.

Hacking apart walkers, to skinning and cutting up meat for dinner from hunted prey, none of that had made the man any less immune when it came down to this, to removing the infected hand of a living person, a friend. For once did Clementine wish Luke was better at bluffing, because him mirroring her own fear didn't help her in feeling more brave about this.

"I gotta take more off above the bite, to be sure. Now just, just be keepin' yer arm still, okay?" Luke said, and as more tears filled Clementine's eyes, she thought she'd felt a tremor go through his own hand that was clamped around her wrist tightly. "You ready?"

Like she really had a choice; the sound of the walkers nearby alerted them to the urgency of things, and to the infection that was spreading out from the bites on her hand, if her whole body wasn't infested with it already.

A single small nod was the best Clementine could manage.

She clenched her eyelids shut, sniffling when blade rested against her forearm over that fresh healed scar inflicted from a stray dog's bite, before Luke raised the weapon again. And with several tensed breaths, he swung the machete down.

One strike was all it took...

* * *

When Clementine was six, she had fallen out of her treehouse and broken her leg. The bone had gone right through the skin and everything. It was gross.

Her mom was in hysterics, blaming her Dad for putting the treehouse up in the first place and telling him over and over in the hospital after Clementine's leg was in a cast and fixed up that he should take it down that same summer he'd built it for her. Naturally despite the seriousness of her injuries, Dad declined. He had argued that they couldn't protect her from everything, that things like scrapes, bruises and even broken bones were a part of growing up and that there were going to be times when she'd fall down and have to get herself back up again without their help. He was right of course, yet on her Mom's insistence, he did install a better ladder so it was easier for Clementine to climb up to that treehouse once she was well again, not that she really went up there much after that.

The pain of that broken leg Clementine had gotten that day, it...it didn't compare to the pain she was experiencing now. No, by far it was the worst pain imaginable, as if her arm was being held down in boiling hot water and she couldn't pull it back out. It was so bad, that with every living, breathing second spent in that unrelenting suffering, she wished Luke would just kill her.

Her crying soon attracted those walkers out from the woods, as Luke rushed to bandage up the severed stump of her arm gushing with blood. Clementine hadn't the time to put her coat or backpack on, not able to muster the strength through the pain to even try, let alone to crawl and to get her feet. It was down to the Luke to drape the coat around her, swinging her small backpack over one shoulder with his own as Luke picked her up and carried her off with only seconds to spare, those walkers within barely a few steps of reaching them. Clementine could hear them, _see_ over Luke's shoulder the pursuing dead, arms outstretched with gaping jaws of broken teeth, their stiff legs unable to carry them fast enough in the cold, that some toppled over like drunks in their failure to catch up to them. But there were more on the treeline that kept Clementine and Luke trapped on the river's edge, lured out by the smell of fresh blood.

Everything else became a blur; she was unable to focus through the pain and blood loss that was making her dizzy. All Clementine could hear was Luke's voice while he ran, trying to keep her conscious as the blood from her arm bled through onto her clothes from those makeshift bandages, her body trembling as she felt herself starting to go into shock.

"It's gonna to be okay, you're gonna be alright! C'mon stay with me, Clem!"

The last thing she saw was the sky above them, a pale blue that was hollow and cold as the winter that had stolen the last of their friends away: a final thought to process through her mind before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and everything went dark.

_'Big, liar…'_

* * *

In her nightmares, she dreamed of Lee.

They were back inside the jewelry store; his right arm handcuffed to that radiator, his body slacked against it without a single breath of life coming out of him. Clementine standing in the doorway of that office, small and afraid like the child she'd once been as she watched him stir. Lee's once kind eyes turned to a milky white, resembling two blank canvases. The man he used to be was gone, and in his place was a mindless cannibal, just the same as all the others to have once been human beings...

_**'You have to shoot me, honey.'**_

Somehow a gun came to be in her hands…somehow Lee was freed and walking slowly towards to her in that store. A handcuff jangling on one wrist, the severed stump of the other arm rose up, reaching out to her with an invisible hand as the corpse of her friend let out a hoarse moan, towering over her.

She squeezed the trigger, again and again, but it wouldn't fire. It just clicked, clicking, _click, click, click,_ _click, click!_

He didn't want to turn; Lee never wanted her to see him like that.

The streets of Savannah in the dead of night, outside The Marsh House hotel, the one she and parents used to stay at. The crowds of walkers were everywhere on that street, walking in slow lumbering steps around her as if she didn't exist. Their faces were familiar, they were the strangers she'd met, friends she'd lost and the family she never got a chance to say goodbye to, all reduced to rotten decaying corpses, nothing but the empty vessels of their former selves.

Mom, Dad, Lee, everyone, they were all here.

In her hands, the gun was gone, and in its place Clementine was holding something made of plastic. It was the walkie-talkie Carley had given Clementine, her favorite stickers from Ben still there.

How did she—

**'**_**Clementine, oh Clementiiiiine.'**_

_S_he dropped the walkie-talkie the instant that voice crackled out from its speaker, the voice of that of the stranger whose name she had never caught, because on his insistence he had told her to only address him as _Daddy _and nothing else; going into a fit of rage if Clementine refused to.

The man who told her…told her…

**'**_**I know where to find your parents, Clementine. Come outside; I'm right outback see? But don't you tell anyone; it'll be our little secret.'**_

Her baseball cap, it blew off in the wind as she climbed over the metal fence behind the big house. Before Clementine could climb back and grab it from the lawn where it landed, the stranger plucked her right off from the fence and started dragging her by the wrist, pulling her down the alleyway.

"W-wait my hat!"

"There's no time; you're parents are in danger! We have to go to them, _now!_" the stranger lied, skittishly looking back with hastened steps, his grip so tight on her wrist it was hurting her. Too tight, breaking the bones, _bleeding, blood, her hand ripped clean off with inhuman force…_

'_**You stupid girl; stupid little Clementiiine.' **_

An office with glass doors, wooden furnishing, a seat by the window revealing a world trapped in twilight, with the house unsettlingly quiet around her. The couch Lee slept on after a stressful break-in and escape from Crawford, it was empty. She walked towards it, across the old big rug, and by the coffee table, her small hand touching the armrest…_becoming stained, thick splatters of blood appearing on the couch, in the space Lee once sat._

Clementine should've woken him up before she left, when the stranger called her…but she was so upset, she'd just…

'_**It's all your faaaault. They're dead because of you.'**_

The walkie-talkie sat on the coffee table, the hysterical laughter from the stranger filling the room that just wouldn't stop.

'_**Poor little Clementine. Stupiiiiid little Clementine!'**_

They died because of her. Clementine had let it happen; she had let that man take everything from her. Ben might never have fallen, Omid might not have gotten shot, Christa might not have lost her baby and turned into a walker, Kenny might still be with them...and Lee, he might never have gotten bitten. She got them all killed.

Tricked, nothing but a lie.

"I hate you...I-I hate _you_!"

The baseball bat from the store was in her hands as if it'd always been there, and Clementine raised it high above her head, screaming as she brought the bat down on the walkie-talkie, smashing it.

"I hate you! I HATE YOU! **I HATE YOU!"**

The walkie-talkie fell off the table, and she struck it, again and again, black plastic and wiring flying out everywhere across the room, no longer vivid, _changing_.

**'**_**Clementiiiine! Clementiiiiine! Clementiiiiine!'**_

_B_**_l_**_ood s_**_ee_**_p_**_e_**_d ou_**_t _****_f_**_r_**_o_**_m _**_t_**_h_**_e _****_i_**_n_**_s_**_id_**_e_**_s of _**_t_**_h_**_e _**_wa_**_l_**_ki_**_e_**_-ta_**_l_**_ki_**_e_**_, _**_t_**_h_**_e d_**_i_**_s_****_t_**_o__r_**_t_****_e_**_d _**_l_**_augh_**_te_**_r of th_**_e _**_s_**_t_**_rang_**_e_**_r c_**_o_**_m_**_i_**_ng f_**_ro_**_m i_**_t _****_m_**_ak_**_i_**_ng h_**_e_**_r _**_s_**_w_**_i_**_ng _**_t_**_h_**_e _**_ba_**_t _**_h_**_a_**_rd_**_e_**_r, hi_**_t_**_t_**_i_**_n_**_g _**_it wi_**_t_**_h a_**_ll _**_h_**_e_**_r s_**_t_**_r_**_e_**_ng_**_t_**_h as _**_t_**_h_**_e _****_w_**_or_**_l_**_d s**h**if**t**e**d**__, __**t**r**a**nsfo**rm**in**g**._

Clementine screamed at the top of her lungs, as that baseball bat snapped clean in two.

**"I HATE YOU!"**

The mocking voice of the stranger was gone, her hands unable to feel the broken baseball bat anymore. It was just her alone in the empty house, _her house_, her own home.

Static, long waves of static coming from all that remained of the walkie-talkie.

'_**Clementine.'**_

The voice was different, but she recognized it straight away. How couldn't she?

Clementine fell to her knees, the pieces of the walkie-talkie crumbling to tinier pieces by her touch as she grabbed at them, as if too fragile.

"Lee?"

No answer. Static,_ static, static, static…_

Darkness began to set, blood falling onto the floorboards, like tears.

"I'm sorry. I-I'm so sorry, Lee."

She was falling, fading into the void, where an infant's cries of agony screamed, loud and piercing in her ears as it followed her down, _down…_

* * *

Falling, her back landed against a wooden surface, her right arm hanging off the edge into nothingness. It...was it...a table?

_Pain_, too much. Her heart kept beating out of rhythm in her chest, the blood gushing loud in her ears.

"—ou hear me? Clem?"

A hand patting frantic at her cheek, the heavy weights on her eyelids receded, enough for her to open them. Hazy, everything out of focus, but somebody was there.

"L…Lee…?"

The mutter of a curse, the person went. The sound of somebody rushing around the place, doing _something_. Her head was heavy, dizzy, eyes fluttering open and closed, dark spots clogging up her vision. She was going, passing out...

"—te me for this."

Fire. Reddish and yellow flames flicker, the brightness and heat intense. There was a strong hand on her arm, the left one-

"Argh!"

Searing pain erupted, causing her to scream. Burning, fire burning through flesh, muscle and bone; the smell of meat cooking breathed sharply in through her nostrils. Too much, it hurt too much!

A scream escaped her throat again, drowning to nothingness before reality slipped again…

* * *

Flames rose high into the night sky from buildings set ablaze. The fire spread like the plague to each street, carried quickly by the winds and the close proximity of those wooden buildings that went up in smoke faster than the blaze could be contained. It was hell on earth, an inferno they had to get out from before they were burnt to a crisp too.

A community that couldn't be trusted, those that had long since imprisoned Clementine and the others without a shred of remorse for their actions. There was chaos all around; those men and women trying to put out the flames with mere buckets of water and dirt alone, while others shot at the mass of walkers attracted for miles by the fire to engulf that town and wilderness surrounding it. It wasn't supposed to end up like that; nobody was meant to get hurt, even if most deserved it. They couldn't stay there, kept like rats waiting to die. They had already lost Kenny and Sarita at Carver's own hand. To stay would've been the death of them. They had had to escape! Yet that carefully planned distraction to make such an escape possible quickly got out of control and became that fiery deathtrap, leading to the survivors of their group being separated.

They'd tried to cross a street, not that far from where all the vehicles and trucks were kept locked up, but chaos erupted in the town before the second half of their team could cross, leaving Clementine, Sarah, the girl's dad Carlos, and Alvin left behind to find another way to regroup with the others without being caught. They'd lost Alvin short time later, a pack of walkers having grabbed the man from the shadows of one building they were passing around the back of.

"Help! Oh god help me! Please!" Alvin had shouted as the dead shoved him to the ground, pinning him down. Carlos was already there, taking the action needed to depose of those walkers with a few well delivered headshots. Clementine remembered helping the doctor pull the corpses off from Alvin, the portly man lying there shaking in shock, _in pain_. They'd seen it at the same time, the bites all over Alvin's back, exposed through the tears in his dirty white shirt reddening from blood. Alvin, he'd given Rebecca his coat just before…there wasn't anything they could do.

"Becs, I gotta find…please…" Clementine recalled those words so faintly, the way Alvin's broken glasses were worn crooked on his face, framing the desperation in the man's eyes to once be so kind and thoughtful. He had tried to get up, but it was no use. Alvin had taken a bite to the neck, and was losing blood too fast.

Screams and gunshots from the burning streets were that more frequent, with Carver's followers running from walkers on fire, the flames spreading. Alvin's pleas to find his wife before the end were denied by Carlos in that moment, the doctor already having too much at stake to risk losing his own daughter to assist an dying man who wouldn't make it. And so had Clementine watched him hesitantly raise that pistol, guilt ridden on his face.

"I'm sorry," was all the Spanish man said, before he'd shot Alvin dead and put an end to the man's suffering.

Clementine had quickly looked away before the gun was fired, realizing what he'd been about to do...however, Sarah right beside her, she hadn't. The teenager had seen _everything_, her hands thrown over her eyes some seconds too late as she'd let out scream after scream, the sound having hurt Clementine's eardrums.

No matter what Carlos had said, he'd failed to calm his crying teenage daughter down. And because Sarah wouldn't stop screaming, it was how they soon came to be discovered by a follower of Carver's, and they were pursued.

Nate, he'd been as persistent as Carver in tracking them. At first impressions meeting him weeks before, Clementine thought Nate to be weird; a cruel man with a mocking sense of humor that'd had him making as many bad jokes as he had done when beating up the others like some playground bully. But the weirdness derived from how he was always nicer to the female members of their group..._too nice_. Nate hadn't fooled Clementine as to why. She saw right through to what his true intentions were, because of the things Christa warned her about.

**_'There are bad people in this world Clementine, those that would look at a little girl or boy your age and not even think twice about hurting you. Unless they have family with them, unless you know for sure they're decent people, DON'T, trust them!'_**

When they were free from Carver's camp, Nate came right on after them. He'd hunted them down like animals, smiling from ear-to-ear as he brandished that shotgun he would fire up at the sky, enjoying making them run scared through the woods, a living breathing maniac who made the St. Johns seem sane in comparison. The only gun the trio had on them was with Carlos, but he had quickly run out of ammo when downing walkers and taking shots at their taunting pursuer. They had nothing to defend themselves with, forcing the doctor to make the decision that he had...

"Come out come out wherever you aaaare!"

They'd taken cover down by some trees, the sounds of Nate searching for them in those very woods nearby; he was calling out more taunts for them to show themselves. They were tired and out of breath, chased by a madman that wasn't going to disappear or give up until they were caught.

That's when Carlos came out and said it.

"Sarah, listen to me sweetie. I need you to go with Clementine now and to get as far away from here as possible. Can you do that for me? Just keep running and find someplace safe to hide until I come find you."

Clementine didn't even have to ask what Carlos intended to do. She knew, but Sarah hadn't; the young teenager was already panicking as she'd clung to her dad's arm, refusing to let go as the rain had started falling above through the branches of the trees overhead.

"W-what no, Daddy no! He'll kill you!"

Carlos had just pulled her away, a hand going to her confused face as he'd cupped her cheek, the doctor burdened with the look of a man that was scared, but ready to throw his life away for the one thing he loved most in the world. "No, no he won't. I promise sweetie. I'm just going to buy you some time, okay? I'll be right behind you both! So don't argue with me on this. I'll be okay. Now please, _just go!_"

He lied. Carlos never came looking for them. They never saw him again...because they heard him die, forced to listen to him be beaten to death as Clementine had to drag Sarah on by the arm through those woods to stop the screaming teenager from running back. The tragic thing about it was, that Carlos's sacrifice had only bought them a few minutes...

They'd found themselves out on the road, spotting buildings in the distance: a bunch of warehouses. Clementine had led them there, the two girls running across that parking lot as the rain came down heavier and drenched them to the bone. Clementine remembered it still, that run-down warehouse they'd taken refuge in, surrounded by metal shelves reaching as tall as the ceiling, filled with boxes and useless furniture nobody had much use for anymore. It was dark in there, near impossible to see anything, but that's what Clementine had been counting on as a deterrent to keep Nate away. But she'd been a mistaken. Her plan worked against them, because the vastness of that warehouse amplified Sarah's crying; the teenager was still a wreck after having to leave her dad behind.

And who should so happen to hear her cries, but Nate himself.

"Little lambs, hey where'd you go little lambs? Come ooon, don't you both go hiding on me now. You're missing all the fun with Papa Wolf, right here!" The echo of Nate's footsteps were carried far with his sing-song voice as he'd called out to her and Sarah; the rain drumming loudly on the roof of that warehouse. A light kept sweeping back and forth through the packed rows of shelves; _a flashlight!_ Nate had one carried in the front pocket of his jacket, something Clementine hadn't known of until that moment.

Another mistake.

"Look, if it's about before, don't worry yourselves about it. I never liked those assholes much to begin with anyway. Set up was nice sure, but they were just a bunch of greedy fucks that kept all the good stuff for themselves, and the ladies...so why don't you two come on out now, and we'll put aaall this behind us? Dead and buried, water under the bridge? Whaddaya say girls?"

Through the gaps of those boxes stored on those shelves, Clementine had seen Nate several aisles down. A shotgun in hand, his clothes and smiling face stained in fresh blood that the rain had done little to wash away. It was Carlos's blood.

She and Sarah were crouched low behind a forklift, yet it hadn't been a safe enough place for them to be hiding. At her side, Sarah had been shaking uncontrollably, her frightened brown eyes wide as she'd choked out one broken sob after the other, starting to hyperventilate. Sarah's inability to keep calm was drawing Nate ever closer to them. Even when Clementine begged her to be quiet, Nate's taunting had only made Sarah worse.

They couldn't stay...

Clementine had turned to the fifteen-year-old, taking her hand with a hushed whisper. "When I say, run with me, okay?"

The request might've as well have been the equivalent of asking the teenager to jump off a massive cliff with rocks below it, that was how much worse it made Sarah, the girl immediately shaking her head.

"No, no, _no!_I can't! No-"

"Trust me Sarah! _Please!_" Clementine had paused to glance out from the side of the forklift, looking down the end of the aisle they were in, where the light from that flashlight loomed dangerously close. "It'll be okay. Just keep running and don't let go of my hand. I'll get us out of here."

"But..." Sarah had only sniffled out another strangled cry, never finishing. The older teen's hand squeezed Clementine's hand painfully tight, both from fear, but also in agreement to go along with her plan, as Sarah had shifted up to balance on her toes from where they were hidden low; ready to run as Nate came slowly walking down that aisle.

"I can hear yooou..."

The main entrance they'd come through was risky, but there were enough vehicles out there for cover until they could get back in the woods to go find the others. It was all Clementine had been counting on as she whispered out that order to Sarah. They both made a break for it.

"Now!"

Shoes pounding on the floor, the two broke into a run, darting out into the open with each other's hands linked together as Clementine had pulled the tearful Sarah along, pleading with her to hurry.

"Hahaha! There you are!" Nate called out gleefully from behind them. They didn't get far before that gun went off, the sound booming out like an explosion in that warehouse, ears ringing as shrapnel struck the side of the metal shelf to their right after both girls had run clear of the aisle, darting out of range. Nate was in hasty pursuit, the light of that flashlight shaking all over the place, illuminating their path with their sprinting shadows stretching across the floor.

The exit was up ahead.

"Hold stiiiill!" Nate's laughter echoed all around them, the man having pulled back to cock and aim that shotgun.

Another shot was fired shortly afterwards, and that was when…

**'**_**A pinky swear's forever.'**_

One second Sarah was running and then the next she wasn't. No scream, no cry of pain, Sarah's hand had simply loosened and slipped out from Clementine's fingers.

Thinking she'd stumbled, Clementine skidded to a stopped and looked behind her, prepared to dash back and grab her…only to have caught sight of the older girl in time to see her body come crashing to the floor like a rag doll, _dead_. Nate had shot Sarah right in the head, the blood just gushing out. A dark puddle had gathered down by Clementine's feet, as she'd watched Sarah's broken thick rimmed glasses disappear within it, too numb to comprehend anything.

In the blink of an eye, Sarah was dead. A month they'd known each other, all those times telling stories, playing games, and she was gone; another person dead in a time span of barely an hour...and Nate, he'd just found it hilarious, sniggering at the sight of the poor dead girl as he'd whistled impressed at his own handiwork.

"Well fuck, there I had to go and ruin myself a feast. Not that you were much of a looker," he'd said walking through the blood, to where Nate poked the muzzle of that shotgun into Sarah's side and he'd cruelly let off another round, her body jerking as another hole was blown into her as big as the one in her skull. The ringing still in her ears, Clementine had stood there trembling in shock, edging slowly back when Nate raised that bloodied weapon again, smiling crookedly at her. "Guess I'll have to aim lower with you little one; wouldn't want to spoil the dessert!"

The trigger was never pulled; Clementine was never shot. Like some crazy luck of the draw, a stray walker came stumbling out from the aisle closest to Nate, throwing itself on the unsuspecting man. Clementine was eclipsed back into darkness as Nate went to fight the thing off him, crying out as human flesh was ripped opened by rotten jaws of the undead. Clementine didn't waste her chance. She was gone, taking off into the stormy night without looking back as that shotgun went off within that warehouse, with Nate shouting out in a rage like some beast that'd finally been awakened.

"I've been bit…fuck! Bitch! You little fuckin' whore! That's it! I'm through with this shit! Get back here! _YOU'RE GONNA PAY FOR THIS!_"

Clementine had let her newly found friend down; she'd let Sarah down and got her killed. But there hadn't been time to mourn her or the others, or else Clementine might've soon been joining them.

Nate must've hounded her for hours in a game of cat and mouse that felt like it would never end. Even when bitten, out of ammo and his time short, Nate never gave up the chase. It felt like being separated from Christa all over again with the endless rain, and a hunter that never let up in a maze of trees to be illuminated with every burst of lightning...there were too many times Clementine believed she would die out there that night, that she wouldn't be so lucky to escape a second time.

It was on some unnamed road in those woods Clementine at last gained reprieve from her hunter. A truck had come charging around the bend from where the flames of a burning town still scorched much of the skies. The headlights blinded her on approach, the engine revving from that vehicle she'd mistaken for hurtling towards _her_.

Clementine sprinted off the road, fleeing into the woods on the other side among the cover of the trees. Yet as it'd turned out it wasn't her the driver had been going for; this was quickly made obvious when the wheels screeched on that wet road when slamming on the brakes and Clementine heard the beginnings of a scream right before the truck knocked down the man to have been chasing her, the killer enraged at being outsmarted by a little girl.

From hiding, she'd heard two people jump out, one going towards where Nate had landed in the ditch, and the other running around the truck to the edge of the road in the direction Clementine had gone. When that person called out her name, she'd known then that she was safe.

"Clem? Clementine!?"

It'd been Luke and Nick; they had found her when searching around for the rest of their group with the truck they'd taken during their escape. The memory to Clementine was one of great relief, having rushed out of hiding to greet them, practically tackling into Luke in a fit of tears after being so close to getting caught by the crazed Nate, who given a minute more, may have beaten her death with that empty shotgun, or acted out the horrible things he'd threatened to do.

Nate resembled nothing more than road kill after Nick hit him with that truck. His body lay in that overgrown ditch, limbs crooked and broken as that man had groaned in pain, coughing up blood that he'd been losing fast. Yet Clementine hadn't cared that he was dying or that it would be painful, only glad that he wouldn't hurt anybody, not anymore. But they had lost so many that night. Seven cut down to a mere three, or rather _four_ with the new addition to the group...Rebecca's baby. She was there in the passenger seat, that newborn wailing loudly from inside that truck; wrapped in nothing but a table-cloth, the only thing they'd had time to dress the baby in after she was cut out from her mother before Carver's town went up in flames. Rebecca was gone too, dying within Carver's camp as her husband had, probably not even far from each other.

They were all that had survived that night, and many more perhaps could've too, if it hadn't been for Nate.

"You sick fuck! Fuckin' bastard! I'll kill you, you piece of shit!"

Her arms had been around Luke, her fingers clinging tightly to the back of his shirt soaked through by the rain as she'd listened to Nick take out his anger on that barely conscious monster living in a man's flesh; kicking and stomping Nate with such force, Clementine had squirmed at every sickening sound of bones snapping through the pouring rain.

"Nick, that's enough! _Nick!_"

"Shut up! Don't tell me what to do! It's never enough!" Nick had stopped, angrily thrusting a finger at the bloody bandages wrapped around his head. "The bastard cut out my eye and fucked with the rest of us! And then _what_, he thinks he can get off at shooting pregnant women and chasing little girls!? Excuse me if you don't have got a problem with that Luke, 'cause fuckers like this don't deserve shit!"

Luke's arms around her fell away as he'd straightened up, yelling at his friend through the storm. "You think I ain't pissed off too? Believe me, I hate him as much as the next son of a bitch, but _pull yourself the fuck together Nick!_ Carver's gonna be out here lookin' for us and you stickin' around here kickin' the shit out of that asshole ain't gonna do us no favors. The horse is dead, don't beat it no more!"

"Oh yeah that'll be a lot of fun won't it, runnin'. Hah! Like a shitload of good that's ever brought us! And it'd done us a whole lot more favors if you hadn't taken the stupid baby! Why didn't you just take Carver's kidney while you were at it! Now he'll never get off our backs!"

"The whole place was overrun! What the hell did you expect me to do? Leave it with the lurkers for a fuckin' barbecue!?"

"Anything's better than-"

"Will you two just STOP! You're not helping anything so just, _stop it!_"

Thunder rumbled overhead, the rain falling heavier as the two men had ceased their quarrel. And as they'd all stood there listening to the crying newborn and tried to decide on the words to say on where to go from there...the familiar sound of walkers grazed the edge of Clementine's hearing; her eyes quickly spotting the undead from through the trees on all sides, lured there by the commotion from all the shouting.

Nick hurried in climbing out from the ditch, removing the gun from the holster on his hip, not to shoot down walkers, but the half-dead man they'd knocked down with their truck just minutes before.

Luke hadn't given him the chance. "Leave him, Nick! He ain't worth the bullets!"

Begrudgingly Nick obeyed with a curse under his breath, reluctantly holstering the weapon again as he'd gone to join them in making their getaway. Maybe Clementine would've gotten in the truck straight away on Luke's insistence, yet the sight of Nate lying there on the verge of death stirred something in her, a hatred she had never felt so strongly before.

Because when she looked at Nate, all she saw was Sarah lying dead in that warehouse, and...

Full blown rage overpowered her, that within the split second of Nick going past her, Clementine reached out and snatched the gun from its holster strapped to him and marched off with it.

"_H-hey!_"

"Clementine!"

Over to the crippled man she had marched while the dead lurked closer from all around, not near enough just yet to be a danger to her, she didn't care. But before Clementine even reached Nate's body, Luke grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks.

"The hell you think you're doin'? Clem, this ain't the time for-"

"Let me do it," she cut him off coldly. Clementine couldn't listen to him; she couldn't let any of what Nate had done go without payback. It didn't matter if walkers feasted on him; she wanted to be the one that did it, that killed him.

Perhaps in some way Luke had realized that too, after she'd refused to budge. "Kid, this ain't the same as shootin' a lurker, don't you get that?"

The memory of that stranger to have been strangling Lee in that hotel room came back to her, right before the bullet pierced his skull at the press of that trigger; dead by her own hands. And then Lee, when he'd asked her to shoot him so he didn't turn, that final sad look given to her before he turned his head away and closed his eyes forever.

Clementine gripped the gun closer, the weight of it heavy in her hand as the rain had continued to fall.

"I know, but I have to."

"No, no you don't. Just, you can walk away from this, alright? It don't make you no coward for it."

Nate wouldn't have lived. No ambulance would've come by and taken him to a hospital, where doctors and nurses would be forced to save the life of somebody who didn't deserve to be saved. Nate was going to die, whether she'd put a bullet through his head or not.

Revenge did things to people, drove them to do things they wouldn't have dared thought of. Clementine had seen that first-hand with Kenny, when he had tried to kill Ben over losing Katjaa and Duck. And then there was Lilly who'd shot Carley in the face for thinking the woman was the one trading with the bandits. Then there was the stranger that had wanted Lee dead, all because he blamed him for the death of his family…to even Lee himself, who had told her that he had murdered a man for having an affair with his wife in a moment of uncontrollable anger, the same anger that had driven Lee to kill the St. Johns after what that cannibal family had done to them and Mark, and countless others...

Some people didn't deserve to die over revenge, but Nate, he was one of the exceptions.

Beneath her favorite cap, Clementine had looked up back at Luke with her eyes open like windows, letting him in to see that it had to be done. Her decision couldn't be changed.

"Please…"

Time ticking away, Nick yelling from the truck for them to hurry up as those walkers were near to breathing down their necks, Luke unwillingly let up, allowing Clementine to take those last few steps to the edge of the ditch where Nate laid mangled up in the grass and nettles. The monster hadn't even known she was there. Nick had beaten him senseless, his every breath wheezy and bubbling with eyes swollen shut as the rain had kept washing away the blood running from his broken nose. Despite how pitiful he looked, it did nothing to sway her, as she'd raised the gun, aiming it at his head.

There, she tried to recall the precise words of guidance from Lee all those years ago, at the time when her old friend had set up the target range within that moving train, hands placed over her ears as she practiced shooting at those green glass wine bottles.

**'**_**To aim, you look right down the top, through that notch. Line up the site at the end with your target.'**_

Breathing deeply, her finger rested on the trigger.

**'**_**Keep it steady.'**_

Clementine fired, and that was it. Nate was dead.

Soon as the deed was done, Luke had grabbed her by the wrist, ordering her to hurry as they'd made a dash for the truck, dodging one walker on the way there. Helping her to climb up onto the passenger seat, she'd seen Rebecca's infant for the first time, wailing and wrapped in that cloth on the seat, still covered in blood and gross gooey stuff. Clementine had carefully taken the baby into her arms, moving over as Luke climbed on in, and once the truck door was shut Nick drove the lot of them out of there, away from the dead.

She'd remembered the window wipers going back and forth, rain falling heavy against the windscreen, the truck headlights on the road that went off into complete darkness, sometimes revealing a dear or a walker or two they'd swerved to avoid along the way as they drove and drove. She recalled Luke and Nick talking a lot on what to do next, where to go, what to do about the baby, and a few spats going on between them, especially on Nick watching the road and Luke insisting he should drive. Clementine was numb all of it, and couldn't say anything other than hold that newborn baby close, the child having finally fallen asleep in her arms. She was reminded of a cruel fact again and again to be realized by the lack of people in that truck.

It was only them left, only them four.

Clementine held no regrets killing Nate, but it didn't change a single thing. Members of their group were still gone, and she gained no sense of justice or escape from mourning their friends by taking out the man to have murdered a handful of them. It always happened, people dying all around her needlessly, and how many more times would it happen again? The cycle just seemed unending with no way to break it, and Clementine was scared, scared that she would soon join the unmarked graves of all the others.

Home, she wanted to go home.

* * *

She awoke to pain: the sharp stabbing kind that was fast in bringing her back to the waking world and keeping her there within its clutches. Her body seized up as her tired eyes opened, and through the haze of her vision she saw a ceiling decorated in cobwebs, a soft orangey glow cast unsteadily across it like the embers from a campfire.

Clementine wasn't in the cold anymore, the woods and snow gone. It was some old bed she had been sleeping in, a couple of blankets tucked around her small frame with comfy pillows propped behind her head. They all smelled faintly of mold, like they hadn't been used or washed in a long time.

Her arm, it hurt.

'_Where…'_

The springs of that bed creaked under her weight, and she found it a fight just to sit herself up. Tipsily Clementine's head fell forward, her stomach knotting as bile reached her throat, and she struggled to keep the contents of her stomach down. Her mouth was dry, so dry. She needed _water_.

It was dark in that room, night-time judging from the lack of daylight coming in through the drapes. It was somebody's house, framed paintings on the walls, but nothing sentimental like family photographs or trinkets. A spare room for guests, maybe. It had its own fire stove too over on her far right: a small metal thing that burned bright enough to supply some light and keeping the room warm.

Combing a hand through her hair by her ear, there was a small burst of panic on realizing her dad's baseball cap was missing. Clementine hadn't needed to look far to find it, seeing it resting on the nightstand on her bedside. She hadn't lost it. But by the sound of a murmur, she nearly jumped out of her skin when finally noticing the figure sitting in the chair on her left, the glow of the stove dancing off the contours of his features to which she recognized as belonging to the face of a friend.

It was Luke. He was fast asleep, snoozing lightly with his head leaned awkwardly forward, his arms crossed in front of him with his winter coat and gear gone. That wooden chair had been pulled up close to her bed, as if he'd been keeping an eye on her for some time, or had tried to. Even while asleep, he looked exhausted. Then again come to think of it, neither of them had slept too well these last few weeks on the road. Things hadn't been right for a long time, even before they met.

Away Clementine wiped the sweat from her forehead, the need to vomit again too great that she nearly gagged. She really didn't feel good at all, her strength brittle, and the dizziness going around inside her skull like a whirlpool was disorienting. And unfortunately for her, besides that strange beating in her chest, an annoying pressure in her bladder well-informed Clementine that she was in desperate need of using the bathroom too, alongside needing something to drink. She had to get up.

What was she doing here? Why didn't—

"Hrm!" Clementine nearly cried out at the unbearable pain to intensify from her left arm when she had gone to move it. Her eyes immediately fell on the covers of that bed, where her aching arm was hidden beneath them. And it was then with much nauseating dread she remembered it: the walker bite, the river, the machete, the _blood_.

'_**Clementine, honey. My arm is gone because I cut off.'**_

'_**Why would you do that?'**_

'_**Because…'**_

Shaking, she gripped the edge of the blankets, fast in peeling them back.

The sleeve of her shirt had been rolled up to the elbow, with fresh bandages tightly wrapped around the limb, covering up the beginning of that brutal scar she'd gotten from Sam in the rundown camp site belonging to a dead family. The further down the bandages went, the more discolored into a light red they became in the low light from that stove, until finally the bandages abruptly ended halfway down her forearm…wrapped around a stump.

_'No, no!'_

A tiny whimper escaped Clementine as she carefully raised her arm. With every rapid blink of the eyes, she wished, _prayed,_ what she was seeing wasn't true, that it was all some trick of the light and everything before hadn't really happened, nothing other than a bad dream...it wasn't.

Part of her arm was gone.

It was _gone!_

She'd seen it there, that severed hand of hers down by the river among the rocks in the snow and blood. It was still out there now, part of her left to rot to the bones, or to be chewed to pieces by the walkers. They had done this to her. After all these years fighting and running, they had finally caught her...

It hit her with a wave of fear, her current symptoms no longer so innocent for things like being thirsty or dizzy from blood loss. Was she sick now? _Was she dying? _No way, there was no way it could've worked! She was going to end up like Lee and like her parents. She'd die the same as everyone else!

**_'We'll be back before you know it; you'll be fine...'_**

Something broke within Clementine then, like a dam falling apart and destroying everything within its path, and she didn't fight it, letting herself give into that heavy weight of that grief to crush her from the inside out. Once the tears started flowing, they wouldn't be stopped.

Nobody should've died, _no one. _Now she was next.

"Not now, not...I-I don't..."

It hadn't taken long for the sounds of her crying to have woken Luke up. The man was quick in consoling her like the big brother she had never had, giving her a long needed hug that Clementine clung onto with her life, afraid in letting go, and angry, so angry.

"Give it back! G-give it back!" she cried into her friend's shirt, letting out everything repressed. Luke, he had just held her, patting her back gently like how her Dad used to whenever Clementine had bad dreams as a little kid. But none of Luke's words would make anything better, nor any of that borrowed time he might've given her, because it was already running out, she was sure of that.

"It's okay, Clem. It's okay. You're gonna be fine."

For once, Clementine wished that he was a better liar.


	2. Chapter 2: Limbo

A/N: My original intention was to always stick with Episode 1 of Season 2 for the grounds of this story, yet after Episode 2 reintroduced Kenny and other plot points and so much character building, it felt necessary to include more from that season. I really liked what the episode did with a number of the characters, and to date A House Divided is still one of my most favorite Walking Dead Episode from the game. So although this is still very much an A/U with its own set of differences, there is some familiarity here.

But without further ado, enjoy :P

* * *

_**The Walking Dead  
Growing Pains**_

_Chapter 2: Limbo_

* * *

It was snowing again.

It had snowed the day before yesterday, and the day before that too. Back in Georgia when Clementine was little, this much snow would've been a sight as rare as rainbows; they had been lucky to get even snow flurries a few days in the year, it was that rare.

There used to always be so much of it in the Christmas movies or on the news, back when TV sets weren't blank empty boxes of nothing. Clementine often, if always, had envied those people in other states who made a fuss about having so much snow, especially near Christmas with all the festivities. She used to hope that one day it would snow enough to close her school down, so she could go have some snowball fights with her friends and ride sleds and make snow angels all day long, without boring homework to frustrate and hurt her poor brain.

Years ago, Clementine might have sprung from the bed and run to that window in excitement, her nose pressed to the glass with a giddy smile on her face at seeing that farm and the fields and woodlands beyond them transformed into something almost magical by that snow. All too eagerly she probably would have run down those stairs, tugged on her coat and boots to go to play outside before her parents had even woken up, if, they had still been alive.

Yeah, that's what the old her would've done if things were like they used to be when the dead didn't walk.

Lying there in bed curled up on her side, watching those tiny snowflakes fall from outside that window, Clementine didn't feel much of anything that resembled close to joy. In the weeks traveling further up north, so much snow have fallen that Clementine couldn't stand it anymore, nor the cold that it brought along with it. She never would've thought it before then, but she just wanted all that snow to melt and to feel the sun on her face again. But this chilly weather was why they had come this far in the first place, because the colder it got, the slower the walkers were. Snow was to be expected, yet still, Clementine didn't think she would hate it this much, and the cold hadn't exactly done them many favors so far. Maybe if it hadn't been for that stupid snow, she never would have…

There was a creaking on the stairs, someone coming up from the first floor, and shortly afterwards from the corner of Clementine's vision, she saw Luke appear in the doorway of that bedroom, giving that open door a friendly knock.

"Can I come in?"

He was carrying something; it was a steaming bowl of what looked like spaghetti, the smell of it making her tummy ache and her mouth water. They had been running low on food these last few days before coming here and Clementine couldn't remember the last time she had actually had a warm meal that wasn't from a can. She hadn't eaten since the night before her hand got chomped, nearly over a day ago. Even with that in mind Clementine kept her lips sealed shut as the lack of appetite returned when recalling those previous events to lead them where they were now, caught within this long wait on her life and if it would soon be snuffed out by the end of that wait.

What did eating matter, if she was just going to turn anyway?

Clementine's attention went back to that window, watching more of the snow fall from those white clouds as the effort to speak was lost.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' then," Luke said, choosing to walk in anyway, holding out that bowl to her when he reached her bedside. "Here, I thought you might-"

Before he could even finish, Clementine scrunched her nose up and pulled the blanket over her head; the sight of her bandaged stump hidden beneath it caused her empty stomach to churn.

Those strong painkillers Luke found in this house did their bit in numbing the pain, a little. Unfortunately like everything else the pills were in short supply and would soon run out leaving her to bear the full brunt of pain from that severed stump if Clementine was lucky to last that long. The freakish thing was Clementine could still feel it there, her hand and the part of her forearm that were missing. She didn't know if that was a good thing or not; she'd never known anybody who had lost a limb before…at least, back in the old days. With Lee, there had been little time for them to talk after he found her at the hotel, and those memories still ate at her conscience.

"C'mon, you gotta eat something," Luke said with some encouragement, but her hand only gripped that blanket tighter with her body curling up into a smaller ball.

Eyes fixed on that ugly stump of hers, Clementine spoke.

"What's the point?"

Luke was lucky in finding this place, after carrying out that amputation and escaping those walkers. Clementine had lost a lot of blood, a minor error on Luke's part as he hadn't tied the tourniquet on her arm tight enough when hurrying to get the two of them safely away. When he had stopped to readjust the tourniquet, it was about that same time he had spotted this farmhouse in the distance. Most the supplies people needed to get by were already taken with just the bare scraps left over, but it was still well-defended with the high hedges and stone walls to keep the walkers away. So long as they didn't start up a disco with booming music and flashing bright lights, they would be safe.

Clementine's stump had been cauterized and washed up, and her clothes changed with some fresh ones in her backpack, since those she had previously been wearing were too soaked through with blood. There wasn't anything else that could be done, but to rest until she got her strength back and _hopefully _recovered.

Christa had told her once that they hadn't cut off Lee's arm until nearly an hour after he was bitten; for Clementine, it'd been maybe a few minutes, and unlike Pete, they'd had a means to stop the bleeding. The only advantages Clementine had had were time and a bit of luck. Still, waiting around was never her favorite thing to do.

Luke was quiet for a while, sincerity spoken when he finally broke the silence.

"It's been over a day, Clem. If you were gonna turn, you'd be showin' it by now."

She could only clench her jaw tighter shut, unable to accept it. There was no definite assurance that she was in the clear; for all they were aware of, they may have only slowed the process down and that was why Clementine didn't have a fever, not yet. All people bitten by a walker were overtaken by the infection at different times depending on their immunity and could turn hours or even minutes after dying. That was one disturbing piece of information Carver had given her during their stay at his camp, and why he always aimed for the head in every person that he killed.

She hated Luke for trying to stay positive for her sake, and she hated him taking part of her arm off too, even if he had no choice and had apologized about it to her after. Clementine just wanted to know everything would be okay, without getting her hopes up.

"I'm not hungry."

Luke didn't give an immediate reply to that, dithering for a while before she heard that bowl be placed down on the nightstand. There were no signs in his voice of disappointment at her stubbornness, no, in fact when Luke was to finally talk again, he almost sounded _amused_.

"Really? Well, that's a darn shame. If you've got no appetite, I guess you won't be wantin' any of this then."

At first Clementine thought he was talking about the spaghetti until she heard the sound of a wrapper as Luke began walking away to leave the room; it was a noise that was enough in tempting her to peer out from the top of that blanket.

In Luke's hands, she saw something. "What's that?"

"What, _this?_" he said, acting a little too surprised as he held it up from where he stalled briefly near the door. There she saw it, a candy wrapper.

It was a hazelnut bar, the ones she and her mom used to like.

If not for the blood loss, Clementine would have sat up faster. "W…W-We have chocolate!?"

"Sure do. Found a few of 'em downstairs wedged behind a shelf stacked full of coffee; figure the scavengers didn't have a taste for anything caffeinated," Luke told her as he casually passed that candy bar from hand to hand like it was a basketball. "I went and tried one, they still taste pretty good."

Chocolate was a luxury nowadays. Survivors like themselves were always picking off the good stuff, savoring the tastes of foods that would soon be too far gone past their expiration date to be edible anymore. Even chocolate would be claimed a victim to this eventually. It's just what happened when nobody was growing or producing food anymore.

The last time Clementine had tasted chocolate was from those chocolate coins Sarah discovered in the box of decorations at the ski lodge, and secretly shared them with her after a pinky swear not to tell the others. Before that it was when Omid came across a small box of chocolates in an apartment that he, Christa, and Clem had happily eaten together those few weeks before he died. But the last real chocolate bar Clementine had eaten was back when Chuck introduced himself, giving one to her and Ben after…after Duck got bit, and Carley murdered.

"Can, I-"

"Nuh uh, okay you know the deal," Luke smirked and pointed over at the bowl of spaghetti on his way out. "Eat up and it's yours, but only if you've picked that bowl completely clean. I won't accept anything less."

"But, not even-"

"Nope!"

He was already heading downstairs before Clementine could protest further, perhaps to go off and make something for himself or to hold her candy bar at munch point.

From the doorway to that bowl, Clementine's gaze fell, slowly resigning herself into picking it up and resting the bowl carefully on her lap. It must've been ages that she stared at that spaghetti, watching the steam disperse from it little by little and that pleasing smell too much to resist on an empty stomach.

Her hand taking a hold of that fork, she twirled the stringy spaghetti around it, and ate. It tasted a little stale, nowhere near as good as that chocolate bar probably would be right about now with its hazelnut creamy center…and…and..

Why did Luke have to bribe her with her favorite chocolate? This wasn't fair.

"Cheater," Clementine said, only to pull a face when she heard Luke yell out to her from all the way downstairs.

"I heard that!"

Shoot, double shoot...

* * *

The weeks were tough after the incident with Carver and his crazed little community.

Without the others around, it was just Clementine, Luke, and Nick left to take care of the baby. They'd all done their best to make it work, searching through houses and what little was left in the stores for formula, diapers, blankets, and all the things a newborn needed; they had even gone as far as to read 'first baby' books to brush up on the basics of looking after the child. Yet, Rebecca's words came back to Clementine every time that newborn cried, leaving her with doubt over the little girl's future and Clementine's own.

What world was this to be raising a child up in?

Christa and Omid, they had once had those same concerns for their unborn baby, having wanted to find both a decent and safe enough place to bring their child into the world to raise him right. The couple had gotten Clementine involved too, teaching her the little things like how she would have to warm up the milk and check the temperature of it on her wrist, to how to she would need to change diapers too. It was done all so Clementine could help them and be a sister to 'little Omid,' as the man himself used to say with a droll humor that annoyed Christa to no end.

Cradling Rebecca's baby in her arms, it'd felt like Clementine was going through the scenes all over again; déjà vu, wasn't that what they called it?

Caring for a newborn in an apocalypse was both a challenge and a risk when on the road, constantly moving with the threat of bandits and walkers everywhere. Aside from what Christa and Omid had taught her, Clementine had no real experience with looking after a baby, and books only helped so much. When it came down to it, an eleven year old with two guys from the country who'd never settled down with anybody while chasing dreams of hitting it big with their home-brewed liquor brand...let's just say that combined, they still weren't the best of people out there left to be taking on the role of parents.

The trio had done what they could; they'd had to for Rebecca's sake, who had begged Luke with every last ounce of strength in her after being shot to save her unborn child; it was a promise they all kept for as long as they could.

"Becs didn't want it dyin' with her, the baby..."

It'd been the second night out on the road. They were inside a small church on the outskirts of some Virginia town they were too tired to go trudging into, and when it'd been getting too dark to see even a hand in front of their faces, they had just decided to stay there until morning instead. It was cold in that church, mostly since one of the stained glass windows were broken, letting in a constant draft. There had been a walker they needed to get rid of too before they could get settled down for the night, the reason why it'd smelled so gross in there. Not the best place in the world to find shelter, but better than outside. At least they did find some candles to give the group some light, a plus since none of them had any flashlights on them. The truth be told, they barely had much of anything, if enough to feed themselves and the baby. This would change when they got to the town the next day, but that night had felt like things might never get better.

Maybe it was from that and the brutality of things to have come to pass as well, that Luke came out with what he had while both he and Clementine were sitting on the front pew near the altar; it was kind of weird, in the sense that up until then Luke had never really confided in her about his troubles, not the real deep stuff that kept his mind silently ticking . He'd had a lot to get off his chest and Clementine had seen something had been troubling him for a while after their escape, so when from out of the blue Luke started talking like he did that night, Clementine had just sat quietly and listened.

"I ain't ever had to do something like that before, cut somebody open like...I couldn't just leave her, not without tryin'. Nick thought I was crazy, I mean it fuckin' was! We were choking on smoke, the whole place goin' up and there I am tryin' to cut some baby out of a dead woman before it can go dyin' too. I almost bailed; I came that close to givin' up and savin' my own skin I was so sure they weren't gonna make it."

Luke had been holding the baby, the sleeping infant wrapped up in two blankets to keep her warm. The baby had looked so tiny and fragile there in his arms, too fragile for a world like this...

His hand had gone to the infant's face, the back of his forefinger stroking that small chubby cheek. "I didn't have no clue she was even alive when I pulled her out, or if she was a she or he y'know? We just had to go like that; we left Rebecca behind. I don't know what the hell happened; everything just went to shit so fast..."

It'd been Luke's plan, his idea of the distraction to keep Carver and his men busy that went beyond anybody's control; he blamed himself for that, for as much as Clementine blamed herself for not handling that night better as well as other things in her life. After Pete's death, Luke was the one that took charge of the group. Even after Kenny joined them for a time and the two bumped heads occasionally, the group's safety was always Luke's top priority. That was why that night dealt such a heavy blow to him after losing half of their group, because Luke was the one that put the plan into motion.

Clementine's thoughts had lingered on that pregnant woman for a while, remembering the last thing the fearful Rebecca had said to her before they got split up— reassuring Clementine everything would be okay. Although what Clementine still couldn't figure out, was if Rebecca had really just been saying it more to herself to stop herself from shaking as she'd clutched a hand to her swollen belly, afraid for that tiny life growing inside her.

They hadn't really gotten along in the beginning, but Clementine really missed Rebecca; she had reminded her too much of Mom.

"Rebecca, she wasn't still..."

"No, no she was already gone by then, thank god," Luke had said softly, not wanting to wake the infant he couldn't tear his eyes away from. "But I still can't stop thinkin' about it, y'know? Like, maybe I could've handled things better, for everybody."

On one of the pews across from them, Nick had been asleep, looking restless and uncomfortable lying there with one foot on the stone floor and both arms wrapped around himself to stay warm. It was the first bit of sleep he'd gotten since their escape and Nick was still in a lot of pain. There wasn't much they could do for him, other than to keep cleaning the wound and wait for it to heal up...the mental scars Nick had sustained however, weren't as simple.

Nick lost his eye, and for what? Just talking back, saying something Nate hadn't liked, so the psycho had some of Carver's men hold Nick down while he'd gouged out that eye from its socket, with the others in their group threatened by the same fate if they'd tried to intervene.

Clementine hadn't been there when it happened, but she'd seen Nick afterwards sitting there away from the others, the man so traumatized by what had been done to him, he wasn't himself...

_**'We're gonna die in here. They're gonna kill us, Luke, every last one of us! It's worse than before. Don't you see, we're being picked off. They'll never let us go!'**_

They had lost Kenny and Sarita two days earlier, and on the same day Nick was hurt, Alvin had gotten his right thumb sliced off by Carver. It'd been at Carver's office in the town hall, where Alvin got broken the news that once the baby was born, he would have no part in raising it, leading to the dispute that had followed and which had cost Alvin dearly. If that wasn't bad enough, Carver had warned him that for every time in the future Alvin tried to do the same again, he'd have another of his fingers chopped off until there was nothing left.

Luke had once said Carver wasn't that bad of a man, yet Clementine couldn't believe that. Whatever good people used to be there in that camp had long left or been killed, and if Carver and his followers had once been good people, then the apocalypse hadn't changed them for the better. Clementine and the others had been prisoners, not part of that community who worked them like slaves. Carver would never have forgiven Luke and his friends for escaping the first time, and viewed all new additions brought in with them as part of the same flock. They were on a death sentence waiting there, and they'd all known it...

Looking up, that crucifix above that altar that had been almost creepy, resembling an old mannequin strung up to be left to decay; the light from the candles glimmered low, making the shadows around the crucifix have a life their own.

Clementine had spoken her mind.

"You did the right thing."

Luke had briefly looked over at his sleeping one-eyed friend of twenty-years, only to turn away again and hang his head in shame. "I wish I could believe that, Clem. Really I do."

"Carver was a bad man. He would've killed us," Clementine insisted. "We had to get out of there somehow, Luke. You saved us-"

"And what cost, losin' the others? I didn't exactly go savin' them did I? They trusted me with their lives and I only went and got 'em killed anyway. I made a bad call and fucked it all up, and they paid the price." He'd caught himself, stopping any more from spilling out about things that couldn't be changed. Eyes shut, Luke had pinched the bridge of his nose, as if trying to clear his head. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have...aw shit."

The baby was awake, her tiny cries starting up from the once aggressive voice to have scared her. Luke had tried hushing her, yet his efforts were to fail, and he soon looked at a loss of how to calm the baby girl down. He still hadn't been all that good with the infant at the time and neither had Clementine, but that still didn't stop her from hopping to her feet to help anyway.

As if that two-day-old were as delicate as glass Clementine had carefully taken the baby from Luke, and in her arms she'd gently rocked that infant back and forth like Clementine did when she was little with her dolls. By some luck it worked, the baby slowly settling down again as she gradually drifted back off to sleep.

So innocent and oblivious to the world they were in, that infant had no idea how fortunate it was to be alive then, and of the fate of her parents she would never know. But Alvin hadn't really been the father; even after learning the child wasn't his and promising to stand by Rebecca whatever happened, that baby wasn't Alvin's flesh and blood...

"Is it true what Nick said? Is Carver really going to come after us?"

Luke hadn't seemed like he knew the right answer for that, if there even was a right answer.

"I don't know...things were an awful big mess back there; it might keep him busy a while," Luke had said, rubbing the back of his hand across his brow, the fatigue from that day setting in on the man who looked like he could've done with some rest. "The best we can do is to keep movin', no stickin' around like the cabin. The more distance we get from Carver and that town, the better."

That was how Wellington came back to being their goal.

The camp up north, it was where their group was traveling to weeks before they got caught by Carver, the place Kenny told them about and where Clementine and Christa previously were going to. After their escape and their group being so small, they wondered if it was worth the risk to keep going there with winter fast approaching and now having a little baby with them. Nick thought it was a stupid plan, but Clementine, had insisted they should do it. Rebecca and Alvin would've wanted the same thing for their baby girl, and waiting around for a better time in the year and for the baby to grow up just didn't seem like a good idea.

Luke had been on board with her decision as well, believing it was the best way forward for them and the baby. Yet Nick, despite being coaxed into setting off up north with them, no longer was so convinced Wellington held all the answers...

* * *

"We should name her something."

Nick didn't even spare Clementine a glance from where he'd sat on that couch, his fingertips patting at that dark eye patch he still hadn't gotten adjusted to wearing at that point, just as much as he hadn't liked his new cap, having favored his old one long since lost after the incident with Nate.

"Why bother?" Nick had asked dully, his remark receiving a scornful look from Luke who'd been busy checking the last of the windows in that living room were secure in that darkening evening.

"Jesus Nick, do you have to talk like that?"

"Talk like what? I'm speaking the truth here," Nick had stated bluntly, taking a swig of his beer; it was the last can discovered in a small stash a few days before that he'd fast drunk up. "Admit it; you've been thinking it too. The baby's fucked; we're all fucked. The whole lot of us will be corpses before we ever make it to Wellington; I don't know why we're even trying."

They'd been fortunate with the truck the two men used to escape Carver's camp that first night, but it'd run out of gas hardly an hour later after picking Clementine up. They weren't able to find any fuel to top it off with, as nearly every gas station and car in the area was drained empty of gasoline from scavengers with the same plans in mind. It was the same deal nearly everywhere else, with any working cars long since taken by other groups out there. Because of that, they could only continue their journey on foot and as a result it meant taking even more risks. Every few hours the baby had needed feeding and her diaper changed, and often the infant cried when needing one or the two. This was dangerously inconvenient in a world full of walkers, when a crying infant could draw unwanted attention from the dead to their tiny group.

Looking out for themselves and the newborn in that first week was hell, with too many close calls with the walkers to go speaking about. Nick was the one to have started admitting defeat to the whole plan of going north, and why he'd drunk up that alcohol so quickly like it was soda. In fact, Nick's quickly growing drinking habit had Luke ending up talking some sense into him in private earlier that day, a "talk" that left Luke with a fresh bruise on his cheek below his right eye that evening.

"'Cause it's the best chance we got right now, that's why. And we're all that baby has for a future too, and I ain't leavin' her with just anybody we come by," Luke had said tensely as he'd gone to fetch the candles they'd taken from the church, his fists clenched tighter on having passed by his friend, yet thankfully kept his cool. "If so how about you just can the attitude, alright?"

Nick looked as though he'd wanted to say something back to that and none too nicely a comment at that. It was only because he'd caught Clementine staring at him from where she was sitting on the other couch with the baby in her arms, that Nick held off whatever was on the tip of his tongue, and just snorted, soon to down more of that beer.

"Whatever, doesn't change nothing."

There were a lot of secrets Clementine kept to herself, and one of them was that she had seen enough death to not believe in silly things like happy endings anymore. Though when she'd looked down at that tiny baby wrapped up in that pink cotton blanket, with those beautiful brown eyes staring up at her as she suckled from that bottle of milk Clementine held, she remembered thinking: how could she imagine that baby not growing up?

She hadn't wanted to see that come true, not when that baby girl was so full of life; seeing Christa bury her own child had been enough…

"So, you got any names in mind, Clem?" she'd heard Luke ask her while he'd gone about lighting those candles on the table one by one with some matches. "Rebecca and Alvin mentioned a handful of names in passin' to us, but nothin' solid; it can be your call if you like."

"Oh, well um…" Clementine had fallen silent, because she hadn't really thought about any names in particular, or that she would even be the one to get the honor in naming the baby like that.

It was an important thing, giving a person their name. It couldn't be anything silly like a name for a hamster or a goldfish; it had to be something special. That was what Clementine was so mind-boggled over at the time, having never been given such a responsibility before, and not a single one of the names Rebecca and Alvin mentioned had stuck to memory, zilch.

Both her parents had told her lots of times growing up how they'd decided to call her "Clementine" because it was all to do with how they first met. Her Mom had dropped a paper bag of clementines when tripping on a dodgy bit of pavement and her Dad had just happened to be one passing by, and so he'd helped Mom to her feet, and in picking up the bag of clementines as well. No more said or done, the pair went on their way...but that following week her mom had done the exact same thing again, in the same part of town with the same fruit and assisted by the same stranger on his way home from work as usual, whom had commented they really should stop running into each other like that.

The rest to come those years after, well, it was history really.

Seeing Nick slouched there, that scruffily-dressed man both physically and emotionally drained after those months in losing both his mom and Pete and the rest of their group—he had reminded Clementine of Kenny and all that man had lost…but, Nick had also reminded her of herself too and the family Clementine was without. If it weren't for Omid and Christa stepping in after discovering her parents were dead and Lee and everyone else disappearing from her life, Clementine wouldn't have any ideas where she might've ended up. Even when they too were gone, she still found hope in others to keep going.

That was how the name suddenly came to Clementine then, a name that needed to give somebody else hope and a purpose to hold onto, rather than just a bottle to drown their sorrows in.

Focusing her attention on that little baby almost finished with her milk, Clementine answered carefree her friend, yet with a smile of sneakiness on her face.

"I was thinking...I was thinking of maybe calling her, 'Nicky.' "

The two men's reactions had differed greatly from one another; Luke cursed as he'd burnt his fingers on a lit match, while Nick had promptly choked on a mouthful of his beer he'd been about to swallow, coughing and gagging as he'd pounded a fist on his chest.

"Wha-the hell you are! Over my twitching maggot-filled-corpse!" Nick had almost shouted, extremely ticked off. Any of Clementine's shame for having caused that young man's outburst had soon vanished on spotting Luke was leaning over that table by those candles, his shoulders shaking in silent laughing fits of hysteria.

It hadn't taken Nick very long at all to notice that his buddy wasn't on the same page as him. "Shut the fuck up, Luke! Luke, shut up! This is serious!"

Luke did manage to get a hold of himself, eventually, wiping the tears from his eyes with a cheery smile Clementine hadn't seen in a while. " 'Nicky,' huh? Well it's got a nice ring to it, I gotta say."

"What? Come on, Luke! Don't tell me you're in on it with the brat too!?" Nick protested, a visible twitch below his left eye becoming prominent. "Nobody's naming no baby after me; no babies, no cars, no dogs, nothing! You got that?"

"Yeah...maybe you're right, probably best we don't go confusing names here," Luke admitted regrettably and crossed his arms with a slight shrug, giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry kid."

"Okay," Clementine said glumly, and returned all her attention onto that cute nameless baby still drinking from her bottle...who hadn't been nameless for very long, for as she'd looked up again, Clementine had seen Luke still had his arms folded in front of his chest, a playful grin crafted on his lips as he'd starting silently tapping at his chin.

"...Nicky Jr. on the other hand-"

"Fuck off Luke! Didn't you hear what I just said!?"

* * *

Nick, he once told her he hated being a screw-up, and that there were things in the past he had done that he wasn't proud of. Clementine had seen it first-hand when he nearly shot her with his hunting rifle by accident back when they first met, and that same itchy trigger finger of Nick's had killed an innocent man who was just trying to help them out. But what Nick really kicked himself for the most was failing to protect his own mother and not being able to save Pete.

After what'd happened at Carver's and losing more friends, Nick had been starting to give up. It'd been like what Luke had once said to her about how Pete was the last anchor to family Nick had. But like Luke had said too, it was a tough world without people in it to trust and Clementine just wanted to shoo away those gloomy rain clouds hanging over Nick's head, so he could see that there was still a life left for him and he had friends that cared about him. That was why Clementine was happy about Luke approving the name, "Nicky" for the baby, not that the same could be said for Nick; he'd been convinced the name was picked as he quoted "to piss him off" but it wasn't that at all. The truth was, it was to get Nick more involved in caring for that baby, who for the most part, had distanced himself from the infant, not wanting to get too attached in case the worst happened as it had to everyone else.

It'd been kinda funny those first couple days, a sort of running joke with her and Luke really, who both would announce a little over the top to the other "Time to feed Nicky some milk!" or "Nicky's stinky; must need a diaper change!" within Nick's vicinity, who would promptly send them a glare and warn them with empty threats to knock it off. But little by little, Clementine had started noticing the change in the man, the good kind. He didn't bluntly ignore the baby as much as he used to. Whenever she or Luke asked him to hold the infant, he did so in a more relaxed way without that stiffness to his arms as if he'd previously been holding a bomb...but probably the biggest change, was that Nick stopped making such a fuss over the new title for Rebecca's baby.

Yet, it'd been that one night Clementine woke up to hear Nicky crying like so many other sleepless nights, that she discovered her and Luke's efforts had finally paid off. Barely half-awake she'd wriggled herself out from the sleeping bag laid out on the floor of that kitchen diner that their tiny group decided to crash in, when she got the surprise of her life to see that Nick was already awake, scooping the crying infant up from her make-shift crib inside that box, as he'd gently rocked Nicky in his arms like the rookie he was, trying to calm the little baby down.

Clementine hadn't been able to do anything other than stare, almost in a state of shock by the scene, but Nick soon snapped her out of it.

"You just gonna sit there or are you gonna help me out?"

"Uh, sure," she'd sheepishly nodded, glimpsing over at Luke who'd remarkably still been asleep despite all the baby's crying…or maybe he'd been pretending, because come to think of it he hadn't been snoring; Luke, he _always _snored.

Faking it or not, Luke had just stayed out of it, so it'd been just her and Nick to attend to the baby's needs. Clementine didn't let him see it, but she'd been happy, just glad Nicky had won him over with her adorableness. Of course Nick couldn't change a diaper to save his life and Clementine had to show him how to feed her correctly after warming up the milk on that small portable gas stove they had, but like her Dad used to say: Rome wasn't built in a day.

Clementine liked to imagine Nick might've been a good dad one day, whether to that orphaned baby or one of his own if he'd ever found anybody. Sure it may have taken him some practice—lots and lots of practice—and he might not have been perfect (nobody was), but Nick, he would've tried his hardest at what he was capable of and trying was better than doing nothing. Or maybe he wouldn't have been a daddy at all, happy as he was. Clementine would never know, because the next day that they headed out…_walkers_…

That morning had been peaceful, just the four of them traveling on their way without seeing a living or dead person anywhere in sight and no buildings visible for miles. It had been so easy just to pretend that the world was normal again out there in the countryside, as if they were just hitchhikers out on a little adventure of their own, and soon they'd go home again, even though that wasn't true.

The hills of those meadows were mounted high to where the sun had not yet risen beyond, leaving them within cool shade of that morning. Yet peaceful as it was to be there too, it'd reminded Clementine too much of Savannah when she'd left that night by herself, with how quiet and empty her surroundings were then...leading her to the first inkling that something was wrong; the second came some minutes after while taking a break from treading on that overgrown path, when they had looked up to see lots of birds in the sky, many flocks of them flying high overhead, and all coming from the same direction.

"Maybe they're um...migrating?" Clementine mentioned on remembering the word correctly, yet the two men hadn't seemed so convinced.

"Nah, can't be. It's too late in the year for that," Luke said after he'd finished changing the baby's diaper, "Maybe, something's...no, they sure don't look like-"

It'd been then that Nick, not far from them on watch, had suddenly coughed in disgust, pinching his nose. "Ah fuck! What the hell is that smell?"

"The baby?"

"No not the baby. That ain't shit man; it's like some fat-ass elephant died or something," Nick exclaimed, his eyes weeping at the stench being carried on the wind, that soon was within Clementine's and Luke's range of picking up.

"I smell it too; that sure ain't no diaper." Luke stifled a cough, "It's rotten."

Clementine recognized it almost immediately; it smelled like Savannah. And not long after had they all noticed the shapes moving on the top of the hill where the sun was just coming up, blinding them from seeing the true numbers of the undead that were right on the other side.

Waves to a full-blown tsunami, that's how Kenny had described it, the herds of walkers that clustered together from a few dozen, to hundreds, to even tens-of-thousands. It'd happened in Savannah, the sound of the train drawing uncountable numbers of the undead to the city that packed the buildings and streets. There were other massive herds out there too that wandered the lands, and if caught within them, there was no getting out, not unless you had a means of masking your scent.

There were thousands that day, a sea of walkers that rose up from the top of that hill like an army, stumbling and falling over each other as they had descended towards their tiny group where they had both seen and heard the undead a moment too late. Nothing had been scarier than running through the long wet grass with the sounds of that starving herd behind them giving chase. The walkers were slow, yet their numbers and relentlessness were their strengths, because they never tired and never stopped. If she, Luke, or Nick had stopped for too long or tried to fight, it would have been their deaths.

They ran for what felt like miles, Nick having to dump his bag when they got back on the road to carry her on his back because Clementine couldn't keep up with the pair any longer. They were out in the country with little cover, and the mass of walkers were too far spread out to ever hope getting past them without being spotted. Once one part of a herd moved in a certain direction, the rest would've followed in their plenty and all it took was one walker, one, to see or hear them.

Their only hope was to find someplace that they could hide and wait for the herd to pass. On the highway they got that chance, finding a coach bus among all those abandoned vehicles gridlocked together on that road. Luke had given Nicky to Clementine as they'd climbed aboard, he and Nick pushing those doors shut behind them after they'd checked the coach was clear of any walkers inside. The pair had still been out of breath from their run by the time they'd all crouched down on the floor between those seats, just after Clementine had seen the herd through those tinted windows beginning to appear from around that small hill on the highway.

The four of them must've been in there for hours, staying as quiet as they could, while outside the shuffling of hundreds upon thousands of feet from the risen dead walked, their bodies bumping into the side of the coach bus like rocks on a metal rooftop that rocked the vehicle about. It was horrible, waiting there for them to pass, their hearts beating fast and afraid that enough walkers might push the doors of that coach bus open and they'd be swarmed within seconds, or that baby Nicky would wake up crying at any given moment and draw the dead to their hiding place.

It'd been a miracle Nicky hadn't made a peep, sleeping through the whole ordeal in Clementine's arms peacefully, while she, Luke, and Nick were anything but relaxed. Yet that massive herd eventually was to move on, still searching for the lunch that they'd lost as the group's hideout remained blind to the dead.

A relief it was when they didn't hear the moans and groans of those walkers any longer, Luke choosing to be the one to cautiously get up and to check they had indeed gone, where Clementine was soon able to breathe easy again at the answer he gave.

"I think it's safe."

Nick stood at the first chance he got, stretching his stiff limbs. "About damn time too, I need to take a piss."

"I said I _think _it's safe, don't mean it is!" Luke whispered irritated at his friend, "So how about lowerin' it down a notch?"

"Fine, whatever. Let's just get the out this thing. It stinks like a hellhole in here, worse than the lurkers."

They all should've been more careful, they should've...

See, they'd been cooped up in there for so long cramped on that floor, that they were all just wanting to get out, Nick especially who had the weakest bladder than any guy Clementine had ever known. It was why Nick had been the one to exit the coach bus first, squeezing his way by Luke after the pair forced those doors open again as he'd rushed to leave without properly checking both ways first. Or maybe he had, maybe Nick had looked, but the lack of a right eye caused him to not check all of that blindside in his vision…the blindside that concealed the female walker that had jumped on him the moment he'd stepped off the coach, knocking him down onto the road before he had a chance to fight it off.

"Nick!"

Luke was fast to react, jumping from the coach bus steps to pull the walker off that was attacking their friend and brought his boot down hard on its skull, killing it for good.

The attack was all over in a few seconds. Yet even with quick thinking on Luke's part, it…it hadn't been enough; both he and Clementine were soon to realize that when Nick had staggered up, his bloodied hand holding the side of his shell-shocked face, with that single eye of his wide open, unable to focus on either one of them.

"Fuck, oh fuck…"

The walker, it'd bitten Nick, had sunk its teeth right into his cheek and his lower jaw, leaving him looking like somebody who had been mauled by a wild animal, and in reality, it wasn't all that far from the truth. It'd happened so suddenly. One second Nick was fine, and then the next he was a man on death row, with nothing that could save him or undo the unjustness done to him. But the most painful thing about it was, just knowing in that heartbreaking moment that that was it for him; Nick wasn't going to make it…

Nick, he had been such a wreck, in disbelief by it like they all were as he'd slumped down against the side of that coach bus, staring at the blood smeared on his hand from the nasty bites of that walker slowly beginning to bleed down his neck and stain the collar of his shirt. He hadn't even tried to play it tough, or laugh bitterly at the hand death had dealt as he'd done so lots of other times getting drunk after his mom and Pete's death.

The day Nick was bitten, he'd cried…

"Don't leave me here man. I don't wanna fuckin' die, not here!"

When you get bit, you get put down; that was what Nick had once said those months before outside the cabin. It's what Carlos had done for Alvin when he had got bitten at Carver's camp during their breakout, and what Pete had done for Christa when Clementine had found what was left of the woman down by the river. That was always the meanest thing about having a friend or loved one bitten by the undead; there was no way to help them, except for one. But as Nick had begged for the same not to be done to him, for them not to ditch him on that highway to die on his own, Clementine could only think back to her parents and Lee and if there had ever been a time that they too had feared death with that same helplessness. If Lee had been that way in the jewelry store back in Savannah, crying to her like Nick did now, Clementine couldn't have pulled the trigger. That's why there was no way she could've shot Nick then, even if she did have the gun on her at the time rather than just the infant, who Clementine had held closer to her more than ever.

A single hopeless look up at Luke had proved he was in that same frame of mind, not able to kill the friend he'd been best pals with for years and who he'd forgiven a hundred times over for all his stupid mistakes and brash behavior. He couldn't abandon Nick; of course Luke couldn't do that. Even if it were in vain, Luke had still chosen to take the hand of his crying friend, and pull him up...

"C'mon, let's get movin'."

And so they'd walked.

In fear of a second wave of undead, the group stuck on the highway for a bit where there was at least more cover in case they needed it. They'd soon come by Nick's bag that he'd dropped earlier, trodden and dirty from the walkers. He'd stopped to retrieve what little food and supplies were inside to give over to Luke, but Nick hadn't bothered to bring the bag with him, remarking there wasn't anything else worth taking.

Off road into fields, to hillsides they later trekked, stopping every once and while to change the baby's diaper or feed her more milk. Nick had sat detached from them every time they took a breather, refusing any food or water Luke offered him, or even having the bites on the side of his face cleaned up.

"Don't go wasting it on me; there's no point," Clementine had heard Nick once say to Luke while she'd been feeding the baby.

Nick hadn't given much in the form of conversation either, with rarely uttering a word during those hours of near complete silence after he'd been bitten. What few words Nick did share had been out of earshot for Clementine, as he'd spoken with Luke. But it was obvious with even all that silent treatment Nick was scared; it was clear as day. Just like Pete, Nick was afraid of dying; he wasn't ready to go and he didn't want to…who did?

With every passing hour Nick's health began to fail him; he walked slower and slower as the day wore on, his skin turning sickly pale and that once bright blue eye going empty as the fever was to stricken his movement. By the last few miles Luke had to help him walk with Nick's arm over his shoulder, supporting his friend with every step that was taken.

Near sunset, when they got to that wooden bridge over the stream running through the meadow, that'd been it for him. Nick couldn't go any further.

"Man, this blows," he'd said more to himself than to them. Wheezily Nick was to cough, small sputters of blood brought up from his lungs as the last of the strength in his legs was taken and he'd asked Luke to set him down, leaning him against the side of that bridge just as they'd made it halfway across.

"What uh, what do you want to do?" It was clear what Luke's question entailed, if Nick wanted help to…

He hadn't though. Weakly Nick had just patted the gun in the holster on his hip from where he sat on those planks, finally given in to the fate he couldn't escape from.

"I'll take care of it; you two just go."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah…well, no. But, ya know…"

When Clementine thought no more tears would be shed, Nick had looked about ready to cry again and so had Luke, who'd knelt down to give his friend one final hug that Nick had been too glad to return, patting his buddy on the back.

"Get those two to Wellington for me, alright?"

"Sure, Nick."

"And…no getting any eye patches; they suck balls I'm telling ya."

That'd gotten a short laugh out of Luke, however short-lived it was. "I'll bear that in mind."

Goodbyes were what Clementine hated the most ever since all this started. To never see somebody again, it always made her sad. Too often there was never a chance to say the words 'goodbye' before seeing them off, whether to some faraway place or to their deaths that was often, if always, anything beyond peaceful or humane...

Nick looking so unwell and soon to be joining the dead, it had tightened something painful in Clementine's chest as memories stirred, thinking of every person who had died that she wished she could've done or said something to before it was too late.

No sooner had Luke let Nick go did Clementine step over and sit down on her knees, cradling the baby Nicky carefully in one arm as she'd encircled the other around the back of Nick's neck and hugged him too, uncaring if she'd gotten blood on her or that he stunk of death.

"I'll miss you, Nick."

He'd been a little slow in reacting, not used to her being so affectionate towards him. But she'd soon felt that hand rest on her back, his weary voice having sounded grateful to her.

"Going soft on me? Not like you," Nick had said in his attempt at humor, though it did nothing to stop Clementine from letting go, not until she was ready to.

Baby Nicky had cooed happily between them, blissfully unaware of what had been going on around her. And lightly Nick had reached a pale hand over, brushing the tiny dark ringlets of the infant's hair.

"Been thinkin', 'Nicky' isn't such a bad name," Nick had confessed to her, although Clementine was sure he'd long taken a liking to that name before having spoken about it then. Still that smile of a dying man had been an honest one and nothing else. "Be sure to keep it, okay? And er, to tell the little rascal where she got it from, and...and, whatever. Just, make it good."

It had taken Clementine's all not to cry as she'd nodded.

"I will, promise."

**_Not a bad place to die..._**those were the last words that Clementine heard Nick ever say before she and Luke had unwillingly left him there on that bridge, his head leaned back, staring up at the sky painted in so many colors of oranges and golds, with a mixture of both content and sadness on his face at its beauty.

Nick had still been staring at it when Clementine had looked back over her shoulder on them reaching the top of that small hill, Nick's head turning slowly in their direction as if sensing her eyes on him…or maybe, he had just been waiting for them to disappear completely from his view.

Inevitably they had gone, Clementine having to be coaxed by Luke to turn away from their ill parted friend, as they had walked down the other side of that hillside, by which point Clementine could no longer see Nick or hear the trickling of that small stream; there was nothing but the sound of that cold breeze and the sight of more grasslands to where mountains and forests waited miles ahead.

As loud as thunder, a loud bang from a gun going went off in that countryside, sending crows flying up from the branches of a nearby tree, as Clementine's legs fell still, paralyzed by the emotional pain on having another huge part of her be torn out, as the baby started to cry.

Another friend, gone...

* * *

_**SMASH!**_

Fragments of the porcelain bowl shattered, landing everywhere on the floor with the leftover strings of spaghetti and a single fork. The room wouldn't stop spinning long enough for Clementine to pick them all up, or even herself for that matter. She'd hit her head on the way down too, when she'd passed out on going down those last couple of steps on the stairs. There was just blackness and then here she was, lying on the floor with her head pounding and her body hurting like she'd fallen off a high wall.

Not good.

"Clem? Shit, _Clem!_"

Luke came rushing out from the kitchen, where she'd been meaning to go to. He was there by her side in a flash, a hand on her shoulder as he gently turned her over onto her side. It was so difficult to focus on his face properly. Clem kept feeling like she was slipping, that she'd black out again.

"Oh fuck, fuck! You alright? You didn't break nothin' did ya?" Her friend asked, the words just barely stringing together in her head. Her stump stung super bad, more than usual; she must've knocked it in the fall. Apart from the aches and pains though, nothing felt broken that she could tell.

"No, I don't..." Clementine went to slowly sit herself up, but the dizziness and weakness in both her arms and legs just came back tenfold and she ended up resting her head back down on the floor, clenching her eyes shut to try and make the spinning go away. She didn't want to lose consciousness again; it was scary.

"C'mon, lemme get you up," she'd heard Luke say as he'd gathered her up in his arms and carried her into that small living room where he'd laid her to rest on that couch. It smelled of old people, or maybe just old in general. It's not like anybody went around cleaning abandoned farmhouses like these anyway, since all the owners were either long dead or out there somewhere like her and Luke, trying to get by and find somewhere to belong again.

Clementine heard Luke muttering something as he went walking off...wait no, he was pacing back and forth, and he sounded really stressed too like he usually did when he freaked out on stuff. "Fuck, fuck, what did Carlos do again, what did he...oh!"

She opened her eyes to see Luke grabbing the pillows from the couch and propping them under her legs to keep them elevated. She saw Mom do it once when a pregnant friend of hers fainted. Clementine didn't know why that helped fainters; it was just something people did. Did Luke even know?

"Alright um, water, I'll getcha some water; supposed to keep hydrated, I think, yeah," Luke said more to himself than to her, and he hurried off to the kitchen probably, as he called out to her. "Just be stayin' right there okay, don't go movin' anywhere."

Like Clementine could if she tried. Nope, she felt more than happy just staying put for now. It'd been a mistake trying to go so far as she did. Clementine wasn't okay, she knew it. When she could barely walk to the bathroom by herself, that said enough that she wasn't at her best. She went to push herself and pushed too hard, and now here she was, all for being stupid for wanting that chocolate bar sooner.

Clementine heard Luke coming back, near to the time she felt something drip down from her forehead to her brow. There was red on her fingers when Clementine pulled her hand away to check what it was, and had felt the broken skin of a small gash right near her hairline.

_'Snap.'_

It must've looked as bad as it hurt, because when Luke saw it too, lifting her cap up for a better look, he'd let out a soft curse, before setting the glass of water down on the coffee table as he left again.

"Hold on, I'll go get somethin' to clean that up with."

* * *

"Y'know, it'd help sometimes if you listened to me, kid. I told ya to stay put; you're not well enough to be movin' yet."

Clementine refused to say anything, stubbornly staring up at that ceiling while Luke dabbed the blood away from the cut on her forehead with a damp cloth. It wasn't anything serious, not enough to need stitches; she'd had enough of stitches to last her a lifetime. Still, it was blood lost that she couldn't afford to lose, even if it was only a few drops. Clementine was just borderline surviving right now, and she was lucky, all considering.

"Still mad at me huh?" Luke said, sitting on that coffee table by the couch where Clementine was like some bed-ridden patient. He'd started cleaning that cut with a disinfectant wipe next from their first-aid kit; it stung a little, but it was tolerable compared to everything else Clementine had dealt with as of late. "It's fine, you can say it; I'd probably be mad at me too."

The phantoms from the missing half of her limb played games with her head; the heart in her chest juddered out a few irregular beats at the same time, leaving Clementine anxious it might stop beating completely.

_'Why was Luke even bothering?' _was the question that kept coming to mind.

Clementine felt awful.

"Am I dying?"

Luke stopped cleaning the cut on her forehead. "What?"

"Am I dying? I feel like I am," Clementine's eyes fell on the shelf of books where she could see an antique clock thick with dust; not a single tick sounded, its metal arms frozen on its face to a quarter to twelve, never to work again. "Lee fainted when he was sick, so that must mean I'm sick too."

The disinfectant wipe used up, next came the band-aid, her friend careful in applying it to her forehead. "I wouldn't think so; it's probably just anemia."

"Anemia?"

"Yeah uh, y'know, people get it sometimes, I think like anemic...I dunno. You must've lost a pint or so of blood and that'd leave any kid your size out of commission easy." Luke explained, pausing to check her forehead for a temperature before closing up that first-aid kit. "You ain't got no fever, so let's take that as a good sign."

Clementine wished she could believe that. Her old group had all thought similar of Duck when he was bit, that it was something the boy might overcome. Lee figured maybe it was like a cold, that those when bitten could fight off the infection if they were strong enough; Katjaa meanwhile, she'd clung onto her son as much as the hope that his allergy of bees might save his life, while Kenny just flat-out refused to accept anything was wrong...

Duck never got better, the hours went by, the miles covered by that freight train getting them closer to Savannah, and her old playmate just got sicker and sicker. Through all Duck's silence in his refusal to speak, there had been only one time that he'd looked at Clementine, and all she'd seen was a hollowness there in those boy's eyes, eyes that'd once been so bright and playful.

There was no more hiding bugs under pillows; no more playing tag, or drawing pictures together; Death had claimed all of that, like it had of everyone she cared about.

"It was my fault."

Luke looked over surprised, just as he'd gotten up to go; his brows knitted together in confusion, like he didn't understand what she had meant. There were so many things she'd done wrong.

"Nicky, it was my fault she died," Clementine confessed, running her fingers over the band-aid lightly. "I woke up near feeding time, but I was still really tired, so I just went back to sleep thinking she'd cry and we'd wake up, but she didn't."

Barely a month, that's how long it'd been since Nicky had died, the last one from their group. It wasn't fair, after everything they had lost Clementine wanted that baby to live so much. She'd dreaded the same thing occurring again after Christa's son was stillborn, causing the woman to frequently vent out her grief on Clementine when she could be bothered to speak.

A second chance to make things right, to be that big sister she never got to be for Christa's baby, but that too had been taken from Clementine. And Luke's silence, it was already making her fear the repercussions of that failure all over again.

"Please don't be mad."

"What, why the hell would I be that? Clem it weren't your fault," Luke said, sitting back down on that coffee table, his expression mournful from a loss she could relate to oh so easily. "Stuff like that, it just, it is what it is, okay? You can't stop it from happening. You didn't make Nicky sick; she'd have ended up like that either way."

Clem rubbed her tired eyes, her voice cracky and dry. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure...like, 99% sure; no medical degree talkin' here too but-uh anyway, forget about that, that's not important right now." Luke reached over and straightened up her Dad's baseball cap on her head. "You did what you could, we both did, and Becs would've been proud of ya for that. So don't you go thinkin' those thoughts; there ain't anythin' else we could've done."

It wasn't that fake lying sort of lie he gave her, the type people used to try and help a person feel better when really the blame was still theirs. Luke meant it, and Clementine hated that; she didn't deserve forgiveness.

"Here, you better drink this," Luke said with a change of subject, picking the glass of water up from the coffee table. "It'll do you some good."

Clementine's mouth felt drier just looking at that glass, but to get up was something that quickly became a troublesome task indeed. Even just going to move stirred up that dizziness like a whirlpool inside her head along with a weakness in every muscle. She needed her friend's assistance to sit up, an arm on her back keeping her steady until Clementine had drunk down a few gulps of that cold water that was as cold as this house, or was it just her? They were dressed up warm; it had to be her.

"You just sit tight for a bit and get some rest. If you need anythin' be sure to be lettin' me know; no more playin' the fugitive, kid," Luke instructed after he had helped her lie back down again and threw that shawl lying on one of the other seats over Clementine for some well needed warmth and comfort.

For a while she was left alone to her own accord, studying the insides of that once loved farmhouse as the snow fell silently outside those bleached white windows to nothingness. And then, from the kitchen, Luke made a return, snapping her drifting mind into alertness again. "Almost forgot, I figured you might be wantin' this. Try not to go scoffin' it all at once alright."

It was the chocolate bar, the one he said she could have if she finished the spaghetti. Only now did that cheating tactic make Clementine think of the times her Mom and Dad said she couldn't have dessert if her dinner wasn't all eaten up. They were all a bunch of cheating cheaters, and Clementine missed that; she missed her parents.

'I don't want to die,' the thought resounded loud and clear in her head as she held onto that hazelnut bar as if it were something of pure riches. The heart still beat unsteadily in her chest, and only time would tell if it would keep beating so she could enjoy another chocolate bar like this again, and keep on living.

If only Clementine could just..._oh_...

"Luke? Hey Luke?"

Her friend stopped in the midst of sweeping up that broken bowl and spaghetti down by the stairs, the man looking prepared as if ready to console Clementine in another heart-to-heart talk. But all Luke got was her, still couch-ridden as she held the bar of chocolaty goodness above her head with a sad frown.

"I can't open it."

* * *

It happened few days after leaving Nick in the meadow, at a time when they thought things couldn't possibly get much worse than they already had. Luke had been trying his best to keep both their spirits up, but losing so many people and in such a short frame of time wasn't something a person got over easy; neither one had forgotten, not any of it. Besides, Clementine had been through this before.

They'd spent two days sleeping rough outside, getting little rest because of keeping watch and being woken several times by Nicky for milk and a diaper change. They were really feeling the strain with just the two of them out there by themselves, and more often were they avoiding confrontation with the dead whenever necessary...

"We can take them easy."

It'd been just three walkers on that woodland road, that's all; one was dressed like a police officer, and the other two just looked like an old lady and man, maybe; they were too far away to tell for sure. Even from that distance they'd stunk rotten.

The walkers were feeding on some people who hadn't been dead long; they'd been bandits judging by the scarfs and hats shrouding their faces. It was their supplies they were interested in, their packs loaded to the full with stuff, maybe ammo or food? And their guns lying there among the bodies of lifeless walkers shot down. Clementine was sure that that alone would be enough to convince her friend they should try when they had so little of those things themselves.

"Maybe, but I don't like it," Luke eventually said to her suggestion, refusing to take any course of action from where they were crouched low behind that burnt-out car.

Clementine had looked up at him, whispering in that same hushed tone. "What if we draw them away with sound and grab an extra gun? Then I can help."

"Nah, can't risk it. Sound or shootin', it might draw more lurkers, or any bandit friends hangin' around here. And those guys might be turnin' soon, and then whaddya know, it's two on six," Luke stole a glance at her and the snoozing baby in her arms, and despite being tired from staying on watch most the nights before, he'd still had a crack at humor. "Or maybe, one and a half on six."

"I'm not a _half_, I can help!" Clementine insisted.

"Not with the baby you're not. We still got ammo, it'll just have to do for now," Luke said as he slowly backed off, keeping crouched low and quiet so the walkers wouldn't be interrupted from their meal and pursue them.

Yet she hadn't gone with him, not straight away.

"But, but the-"

"I said 'no', Clementine!" He hissed, his tired eyes urging her to follow him and go. "Look, let's just find another way around, and get movin'; there'll be other chances like this and probably lurker-filled too, but I ain't risking it on that many and with a baby with us, now let's go!"

He was right, even if they didn't find much in ammo or guns afterwards, the baby's safety came first. But it was after a while being caught in her own thoughts that Clementine realized it wasn't just the baby Luke was looking out for; he'd been worried about her too.

The first snowflakes had begun to fall that evening on arriving in that small neighborhood of a few houses: a small reminder that Christmas was just around the corner. Thanks to some lucky scavenging around those buildings, their food supplies were stocked up again, and they still had more than enough formula for the baby. With finally a roof over their heads keeping them out from the cold and without that many walkers seen around, it'd been a nice place to stop for a while.

And better yet, they'd found something else.

"Hah! I don't believe it; this thing's still got some juice left!" Luke had said like a kid with a new toy. And Clementine thought he was supposed to be the grown-up between them. It was stupid, that ancient car hadn't even looked road-worthy; it'd been rusted and falling apart inside that garage, yet the smooth hum of that engine said otherwise. After all that time, they had a functioning vehicle again.

Adjusting her arms around the fidgety Nicky, Clementine leaned over from that open car door, checking the fuel gauge. "It's almost empty."

"Yeah, but it might give us a few extra miles yet, and that's a few extra miles off our feet!" Luke killed the engine, taking the key with him as he stepped out, looking rather pleased with himself. "Only car in the neighborhood and the thing works, hah, that's luck for ya there."

Clementine turned her attention back to that rust bucket, that despite looking like a rust bucket, the wheels were shiny and new, and the inside of the car seemed okay, sort of. "I still think it's junk. It looks all funny."

"That's because they were just restoring it is all, see from all the equipment they got over there and the carjacks? Probably just hadn't gotten to doin' the exterior yet," tucking a hand under his chin, Luke went around to the front of the car, like it were a wonder to behold. "Looks like an old Cadillac, 60's I think. Y'know my gramps he used to have all these-"

Clementine stared at her friend very blandly in a way that soon cut him off, as Nicky gave a little gurgle in her arms, those tiny baby's fingers clinging at the zipper of her coat. Fact was, it was getting late; they hadn't slept well in days and had spent the whole afternoon scavenging around that neighborhood. So, as far as Clementine was concerned, a history lesson on cars at the time was a very big 'no thank you'.

"On second thoughts, scrap that for now," Luke cleared his throat, assertiveness replacing dorkiness as he clapped his hands together and stepped by her to head on back inside the house through that garage door. "Let's get crackin' in securing this little humble abode for the night; Nicky'll be needin' feedin' soon."

No surprise on that, the baby girl had been trying to put the zipper of Clementine's coat in her mouth, despite the pacifier being in the way; it'd been a while since Nicky's last feed and her waking up had often been a sign she was getting hungry.

Clementine had nodded, carrying the infant with her as she followed her friend on inside. "Okay...but, what's an 'abode'?"

"It's a sayin'," Luke explained with a yawn.

"Okay, what does the abode have to do with anything?"

"I dunno, it's just what you say. Work with me, kid; kinda fallin' asleep here as it is."

They'd decided they would stay a few days in that house, allowing them to rest up before moving on. Clementine was fine by that, and just happy not to be spending the night out in the cold again. Yet sad it was, Nick's absence from his recent passing was still felt and didn't allow for peace of mind to be accepted in so easily when Clementine still missed him and the others.

Over a month, that's how long it took for them to be traveling without their friends from that cabin. The times Clementine had seen Luke and the others joking about something were replaced by quieter times now, much quieter. That deck of cards Luke kept on him were played no more, the games of poker between friends just a memory. Instead, most evenings after Nick's passing, Luke had started going over those maps with Clementine, not just to be sure they were on the right tracks, but so that Clementine was also aware of how to navigate and where to go in the event anything happened to him; it was a possibility she didn't want to consider.

Luke wasn't one to wallow in despair and no way was he a weak man, but he wasn't made of steel either. The recent death of his childhood friend had hit him hard, though he tried not to show it, not like he had when he'd spoken to her in that church all that time ago. They needed to stay focused if they wanted to make it to Wellington, and that meant keeping their heads held high. Yet Clementine found that even those who were used to staying on such mindsets still needed a little booster every once in a while, especially when it was that someone's birthday...

It had been that evening, Clementine had seen Luke sitting there in the kitchen quietly rather out of himself, unaware that Clementine could see him from where she was leaned over the banister on those stairs. Maybe he'd thought she was still napping up in the bedroom with the baby and could do without having to pretend he was dealing with it all better than he let on.

That spaced-out look on Luke's face had immediately gone when he'd heard her coming down the stairs, a smile to have welcomed Clementine when she'd entered the kitchen.

"I figured you'd be out longer; sleep well?"

"Mhmm," Clementine had nodded, her arms tucked behind her back where they were to stay, waiting for Luke to take notice.

It didn't take him too long. "Whatcha got there?"

At that cue, Clementine walked on over to her friend, sliding one of her arms out from behind her back…and so had she set that familiar deck of cards down on table in front of him, the deck she had taken out from his rucksack.

Luke had stared at those cards, and then back at her to where he'd raised curious a brow. And Clementine, with a quick glance down at her feet, had then chosen to reveal that small bag of jelly beans to her friend.

"I found them upstairs; you wanna try winning some?"

She still remembered how much Luke looked like he wanted to laugh at that offer at a game of cards with her with jelly beans as the winnings. Out of all the games those men played together, candy was never the thing on offer, and that was the first time the two of them ever played a game of cards by themselves. Clementine had almost thought he'd turned it down, but Luke soon had motioned his head at the chair across the table, and, beaming with a victorious smile Clementine had gone to sit herself down while Luke started shuffling those cards.

"Just 'cause the others ain't here, don't mean I'm gonna go easy on ya, kid," he'd confidently stated, causing Clementine to roll her eyes as she'd carefully poured out those jelly beans onto the table so they didn't go everywhere.

"Sure," she'd said unconvinced, and sure enough, Luke had soon eaten his words and not jelly beans.

A half a dozen quick rounds of poker they got in before Nicky's cries upstairs ended their game…and Clementine had won most of them, gobbling up a few of the jelly beans that Luke did win just to annoy him, and also because Clementine liked jelly beans too. Although, the jelly beans had gone rock hard from age and didn't taste all that nice as she remembered. But the game still succeeded in cheering Luke up lots, even if he was a sore loser.

* * *

If one thing kept them preoccupied when they weren't traveling or trying to get by, then it was Nicky. No matter how bad things got, seeing that smiling baby girl with that cute button nose of hers, it'd made all the difference for Clementine. She and Luke had really been getting the hang of all that baby stuff too, working as a team just as good as they were at killing walkers. Nicky might've been small, but that was the advantage to it; she wasn't too heavy, slept for the most part and aside from the crying, stinky diapers, and the smell of baby puke on their clothes, caring for that baby wasn't such a bleak prospect as it had been when they had first escaped Carver's camp. Despite adding looking out for a baby while surviving against the undead, they were slowly managing to cope.

"Wipes," Luke had called out like a doctor in theatre while Clementine handed over each of the tools needed for that complicated operation they were used to performing by then, and so was that baby girl who laid there on that changing mat, not giving a poop that she'd pooped out so much poop into her diaper.

Poop was just as gross as walker guts, and as messy.

"Baby powder."

Out Clementine took that small tub of baby powder from her backpack, the stuff soon to have been puffed up into the air everywhere thanks to her friend applying too much as usual; it'd caused even little Nicky to give out a few tiny coughs.

"Crap, sorry, _sorry_...uh, diaper."

Foggy-eyed with powder, Clementine purposefully chucked the fresh diaper at Luke's head, but he'd caught it, unwrapping the diaper and putting it on the baby.

"Trashcan."

Nose pinched, she held out the trashcan at arm's length as Luke slam-dunked that dirty tied-up diaper where it belonged with all the other dirty diapers they'd had to change on Nicky that evening.

"Annnd done! Think we set ourselves a world record there!" Luke announced while he buttoned up that baby girl's bright purple sleeping suit, matching to the color of her pacifier, both of which Clementine had picked out for her from the drawer of new baby clothes in one of the other houses; the price tags hadn't even been taken off them yet. Somehow that just made Clementine sad, thinking those clothes might've been for a baby that never got the chance to be born before the dead took life from the living.

Grown-ups, they talked about how they felt bad for kids growing up in a world like theirs now. Even if she missed school and being a kid, Clementine felt worse for the babies like Nicky who were just lucky to be born and yet were still too young to survive on their own, and learn to adapt like Clementine had. That baby was born into hell and she had no idea of it. They could've escaped walkers or killed any that'd been seconds from harming them and Nicky would just sleep on or stare bug-eyed up at them, unaware of how many times she'd cheated death.

That baby might've been small, but she had a big heart on her and that was what Clementine loved most about her. If there was anything Clementine remembered most about Nicky though, was that despite the age of two and half weeks, she was incredibly picky. Nicky liked her hugs, being wrapped up snug in her blankets and only ever went to sleep if somebody sung to her; if they didn't, Nicky would cry and cry until someone did before walkers came knocking. In those few weeks babysitting, Clementine had sung more nursery rhymes than she had in her entire life. Nick had never sung to the baby, saying that he had the singing voice that could skin a cat, and hadn't really wanted to make a fool of himself. Clementine meanwhile, wasn't exactly gifted, yet she'd still made the conscious effort to sing those songs for Nicky that her Mom and Dad had taught her when she was little, humming the parts she couldn't recall or making some entirely up.

Hands down, it was Luke who was the one with the best singing voice and one that Clementine secretly was jealous of too. Whenever it was his turn to take care of Nicky during the night, he would sing some old country songs, those Clementine never recognized and was too shy to ask the titles of, but she had enjoyed listening all the same. It would take her back to the days her parents used to sing together on those long car trips when away on vacation, or back to that brief time in the Motor Inn when her old group had all sung around that campfire for a laugh, until Lilly told them to stop, in case the noise drew walkers to the camp.

She never admitted it, but if things were like they used to be, she could've easily imagined Luke being one of those singers on the radio, back when they had working radios. And Nicky, though barely half a month old, had liked Luke's voice too, showing it in the way she'd focused her bright brown eyes on him and nothing else. The infant had really favored him for that talent of this, dozing off a lot quicker whenever it was Luke that had sung to her as she had that night when she was rocked to sleep.

The last time Clementine had seen Nicky alive was when she'd tucked that baby girl to bed inside that woven laundry basket being used as her crib. As Clementine had stroked her cheek ever so gently before kissing Nicky on the forehead goodnight, she had wondered if they would be like this in Wellington too, like a family. If there really was a chance for a normal life, or the closest they would ever to get to one, would they all stay together as they had? Clementine wished that they could've, together with Nick and the others, everyone.

Getting that baby girl to Wellington, getting all three of them to Wellington, it'd seemed doable. After all the people who had died, that baby deserved to have a future; all three of them deserved that much...but, it would never be the three of them.

It'd stopped snowing when Clementine arose that morning at first light, the snowflakes long settled on the edges of the windows in a white powdery frost as the world outside and the house within felt unsettlingly still. Something was wrong; she'd just known it straight away as she'd sat up on that bed, her body briefly shivering not from the cold, but the unease within Clementine on looking to that empty baby bottle near the laundry basket on that small table.

Except for that one time after they'd turned in for the night, Nicky hadn't woken them up.

"Luke, _LUKE!_"

In the other bed her friend had come to, quick in getting up when he'd seen Clementine over by the basket, her shaking arms huddled around that bundle of blankets with the gray-skinned infant inside.

Nicky wasn't moving.

"Give her here," Clementine had held the baby out as Luke had carefully lifted Nicky out from her arms, but Clementine could tell by how rigid the baby's body was that they were too late; her lips pale beneath the pacifier, without a single rise to fall from her small chest.

Nicky didn't die from a walker bite, nothing as cruel or barbaric as the deaths of their friends and family. No, Rebecca's baby had died from natural causes, from the very thing that used to haunt thousands of new parents in the old days, and probably still did for the few that survived long enough to bring new life into this ruined world.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or what most called it; Crib Death.

They couldn't have saved her; they couldn't have known. And that was the worst thing about it, that they weren't able to prevent that little baby girl from dying…

Luke had buried Nicky in the backyard of that house later that same morning, after having to make sure the infant wouldn't turn, something that had been difficult for him, and that he hadn't allowed Clementine to be a witness to.

While she'd sat there in the living room, listening to the sound of Luke digging that tiny grave out back, Clementine took notice of the small wooden cross hung on the wall above the mantelpiece. She had soon gotten up, dragging a chair over to stand on so she could remove the cross from its hook. Taking the small pocket knife from their things, she'd carved Nicky's name onto that cross, just feeling enough in that numbness of emotions at having that baby buried, that Clementine could be grateful at least Nicky's grave would be marked, a dignity the others never got.

_**'How am I supposed to raise a child? I mean, how can anyone now…? Everything is so fucked up.'**_

_**'I think it's possible.'**_

_**'How do you know?'**_

_**'Well, I'm still here.'**_

They'd failed Rebecca, that's all Clementine could keep thinking about, so tangled up in her own thoughts that the knife accidentally slipped in her grasp on carving out the letter 'C,' slicing the side of her thumb. It'd stung, but Clementine hadn't done anything about it, didn't stand up to go and wash it clean and get a band-aid. She had just stared emptily at that little cut, watching the dark liquid seep out from between the broken skin, and had let it bleed...

After that cross was set in the ground at that grave on what used to be a flowerbed, Luke had suggested they could still stay the extra day, to give her the time she needed before moving on. Yet Clementine refused, just wanting to get as far away from that place as possible. They had rested up enough, and it was best they didn't stay and waste what daylight they had to travel on.

So there they were, planning to move on from that small house and that ghostly neighborhood. Because she was so out of it, Luke had chosen to go down to the brook just a few minutes' walk from there by himself to refill their bottles of water, while Clementine stayed behind to gather up the last of her things into her backpack, leaving behind those baby clothes and other belongings of Nicky's they had no need of anymore.

Luke left her alone so she could say goodbye, even though she hadn't really said anything that could be considered saying a goodbye, she couldn't even cry. Clementine had just sat perched on the edge of the bed, staring at that empty basket still carrying the indents where Nicky's body had laid, as Clementine's thumb ran along the edges of that pacifier, unable to tear her mind away from the memories of that sweet little girl that should've still been breathing with her.

At hearing the sound of the door open downstairs and a little sooner than expected, down Clementine carefully set that pacifier in the basket, staring at it a moment longer with a silent prayer somehow Nicky would get a second chance in another life somewhere better, before Clementine left that room to go meet Luke.

There was a little problem with that though, the problem being that when Clementine had gotten to the stairs, she only made it halfway down when she was greeted by the barrel of a gun.

"Well, fancy meeting you again young lady."

She never thought she'd see that man again.

They had been reckless, reckless and stupid in believing no repercussions from the incident at the camp some weeks before would follow them this far. But they had lived in a false sense of security from that, security that was ripped right out from under Clementine's feet in an instant on finding Carver standing at the bottom of those stairs with that prized revolver of his pointed directly up at her.

He'd looked a total mess, like a tramp; thin with barely any weight on him, clothes dirty and his stubble grown out into a thick beard that was as poorly maintained as his hair...and with a mad-eyed look harbored in him that reminded Clementine so much of the stranger from Savannah; Carver may as well have been the same guy.

No others were with Carver that day, either dead or having long abandoned their leader that they had finally seen him for who he was, and who had fallen into a far worse frame of mind since then. His calm exterior had crumbled to ruin, for all Clementine saw that day was just a broken man, a man still driven by the same goal that he would do anything to achieve and at any cost.

That fact terrified Clementine more than that gun.

"Got nothin' to say to me, huh? I can't really blame you. I'm not much of a pretty sight to see; I have you and your traitorous friends to thank for that," Carver had said to her slyly, the scratching of his fingers on his beard having sounded like sandpaper to her ears, with the stench of filth coming off him so strong that Clementine had been able to smell him from all the way from up those stairs. "The truth is I've been trackin' you for some time; trail nearly went cold too, but then I found your friend, what's his name…ah, never liked the boy much anyway; always complaining about somethin', a downright coward if I ever saw one and I've seen plenty."

Clementine remembered Nick in that moment, of him rested propped up against that bridge where she and Luke were forced to leave him behind; she remembered the sound of the gunshot, carried across the countryside from his life having ended by his own hand...or, or had it been? Might it have been Carver all along? Could he have been following not far behind them those days before as well? Clementine never uncovered the truth, but she didn't want to think the last person Nick saw was that man standing over him, rather than his best friends that cared about him.

Clementine held onto that banister with such a death grip, the ends of several of her fingernails cracked against the wood. The air caught in her throat, unable to speak, frightened that at any second Carver would shoot her right where she stood and her life would be over.

But he hadn't. Carver was too proud a man, lost in the moment of proving to her what fools she and Luke were. He'd been hunting them from the very start, from the very instant he'd seen Luke and Nick drive off with the newborn in that truck, the same truck Carver was to later find abandoned. He'd known of their plan to go to Wellington after all the group's talk of it and the direction they were heading, and that it was only a matter of time before he caught up to them whether on the road or at their destination. Scarier still, Carver was even aware of the fact little Nicky had been a girl from some unwashed baby clothes they'd left from somewhere they'd stayed prior, even down to the small pink hat they'd forgotten by accident in one such place. Carver announced all of this to Clementine as he'd held her at gunpoint, the man sounding nothing but deluded as if searching for them and his baby girl had finally driven away what little sanity he had left.

A more insane Carver was much more lethal than a lesser sane one.

"You can't even imagine how long I've dreamt of seeing her, my own flesh and blood. They all thought they could keep her from me, but not anymore. They stripped me down to rags and obliterated my community and all we'd worked for, but I'll get it all back, everything," very slowly Carver had climbed those stairs, never taking the gun off her as he'd smiled with that false kindness that did nothing to hide who he truly was. "As much as I really appreciate you two going out of your way to take care of my little girl, I think it's about time I take over from here, being her rightful father and all. So if you'd do me the honors in leading me to her room sweetheart, I would be very much obliged."

Clementine nearly had a heart attack, edging back a step with legs shaking at the realization of his words revealing no deceit behind them, but longing at the mention of his child…

Carver, he had absolutely no idea his baby was dead.

He must've been aware Nicky was with them until recently for him to have risked pulling a stunt like that, especially if he'd discovered the places they'd stayed in previous nights; coming across those baby things like used diapers that would've separated them from other survivors out there. For all Clementine and Luke could've known, Carver might've been stalking them for days, watching them from that very house just waiting for the right time to drop in, when Luke had conveniently stepped out.

But what Carver hadn't seen was the freshly dug grave out back in the garden and it was that hidden truth which was the only thing keeping him from pulling that trigger. Yet Carver wouldn't have underestimated her again, not for a second time as he had done back in his camp when he believed he could change her and failed. The only trick Clementine had up her sleeve was _bluffing_, a little talent of hers that thanks to her friends and playing those few games of poker they invited her to, she had gotten pretty good at it since her first encounter with Carver.

Worried at what might have happened if she said nothing, somehow, Clementine pushed herself into finding her voice again. And bluff, she did.

"Why should I? You'll just kill me anyway."

There was only another smile given from the man to her by her boldness as Carver stepped closer. "That's an interesting point you make there. But you see I have no intention of killing you my dear, or spilling more blood than I have to."

Kenny's death flashed in her mind, at the horrible moment Carver had slit open his throat as punishment for challenging him to a fight. It hadn't been Kenny's fault, the others had tried to calm him down, but he'd just mentally lost it over Sarita's death when she had been murdered right in front of everybody by that same monster who claimed it was Kenny's doing for being a loud-mouth.

Kenny had just charged at him, throwing punches left, right and center until one of Carver's men whacked him in the back of the head, stunning him long enough for Carver to get the upper hand and kill him as punishment for his actions. It'd been torture for Clementine and the others to go through as they'd been forced to watch her old friend bleed out on the ground in the middle of town while they were held back at gunpoint; no shouting or words were strong enough to stop any of it before that blade was drawn and the chambers of that revolver were emptied into Kenny's skull.

The blood, there'd been so much blood...

Clementine had let go of the banister, her palms sweaty as her eyes briefly flicked beyond Carver to the windows near the front door, searching for signs Luke and if he was coming back; there were none. "W-Why not? I'm just a kid, you don't need me for anything."

"All these questions. I could always tell you were a smart one Clementine, and those are the sorts of people I just so happen to like, so long as they do as they're told," Carver said just three steps away from her, that gun close enough that if it had gone off, the damage would've been fatal to her. "You've done good for my girl, it only makes sense to keep you around rather than Luke, now doesn't it? And I'm sure with some persuasion you'll be willin' to come along quietly, isn't that right? "

One person on their own couldn't take care of a baby, not in this world. That was the only reason Carver even considered the idea of keeping her around, so there would be someone else there to help. An eleven-year-old Carver believed he could easily control more than a grown man like Luke, if Carver took Luke out of the picture, then Clementine would've had no choice but to go with him if she wanted her and Nicky to survive...or so he must've thought.

She'd seen how he worked, warping people's minds with well-chosen words and both visible and veiled threats. The younger they were, the more likely they were to be convinced into his way of thinking, out of willingness or fear. But Clementine wasn't weak like Sarah, and what little belief Carver had that there was still a chance of corrupting her mind because of her age, he was wrong.

All said and done though, Clementine wasn't tough like Lee or Luke to risk fighting to take that gun out of his hand. If Carver wanted to, he could've beaten her half to death if it got her to cooperate with him. Carver was the one pointing the gun at her, not the other way around…

Clementine could only bite down on her tongue to stop herself from saying something stupid; silence Carver took for compliance.

"Good, now please be a dear and kindly show me the way," he'd motioned with that revolver forward, to usher her up the stairs with that skin-crawling sneer. "No funny business now, Clementine. I got my eye on you."

Her mind had been racing a mile a minute, her pulse going just as fast as she'd nervously turned around and walked slowly back up those stairs with Carver following right behind her as she wished with every step she took closer to that bedroom Luke would come back from the river in time to save her. She was seen as a valuable asset to Carver, but that wouldn't last once Nicky's death was revealed. Even if Luke had returned in time, Carver would've just used her as a hostage long enough to put a bullet in his head like he had done with her before. They would've both died without a plan.

Clementine couldn't rely on Luke, only herself.

Upon finally bringing Carver to that room where the basket was up on the table by the window, it was by that point she'd caught sight of that slightly ajar door to that cramped bathroom adjoined to the twin bedroom she and Luke had shared with Nicky. It was her only chance…

Making sure to not to let her eyes give anything away, Clementine gazed over at that basket from where she stood at the foot of those unmade beds, and pointed. "She's in there, in the basket."

Smiling like some proud father, Carver had taken the bait straight away and walked right by her, all too eager to officially meet his child and hold her in his arms after all that time, the same child he must've believed Clementine wouldn't have dared to go running off without. If Nicky were still alive, maybe, that would've been true…

_But she wasn't!_

In the time it took Carver to look into that woven laundry basket and discover nothing but those blankets and the pacifier inside, Clementine had already bolted for the bathroom, slamming the door shut and twisting that key residing in its lock before he even had a chance to stop her. The impact of that man's body colliding with that door seconds later on the opposite side made Clementine jump back in alarm, near falling into that ugly green bathtub as Carver shouted threats out over the heavy pounding of his fist on that door.

"Clementine! Open the door, Clementine! _**OPEN THE DOOR!**_"

The revolver soon fired when his reasoning failed; chips of wood blasting out everywhere when Carver tried to shoot open the door's lock, each bullet fired through just missing Clementine by inches.

Or maybe, he'd just been trying to shoot her.

Pumped full of adrenaline, Clementine wasted no time in stepping up onto that toilet lid to push open the small narrow window above it, her body just small enough to squeeze through it and escape as that bathroom door was kicked open behind her with a loud bang.

No time to think, Clementine just went, sliding down the snow-covered tiles of that garage, her body rolling off the side of the roof to land gracelessly on some bushes below that broke her fall. Tumbling off, scratched up by twigs, she'd looked up to see Carver by the window, getting his arm out with revolver in hand to fire. But she'd taken off, already being too far gone down the street before Carver could muster any decent aim. That was what one of Carver's men had joked about to his friends back at the camp after all, when the guards keeping watch on them hadn't been aware that their leader was listening. The man had laughed about how Carver couldn't shoot long range because of his vision, or something...whatever it was, it was a joke that'd gotten the man beaten to a bloody pulp by his leader for such disrespect, and he was never seen again after that by anybody.

That sharp memory of hers paid off and saved Clementine big time, for she'd soon heard Carver let out a curse and retract his arm, not firing another bullet from that gun as she'd fled.

It hadn't stopped him though, no way.

That front door was to be thrown open by the time Clementine was at the intersection, her heart thudding in her chest at seeing Carver running from the house, his face ablaze with lunacy and fury as he'd given chase, growling between gritted teeth like some feral dog.

To be caught wasn't an option, but to run was. And run she did with everything in her, sprinting through the small open gate to the woodland path beside the last of the houses at the end of that neighborhood, nearly running right into the arms of a walker Clementine had to swerve to the side of to avoid getting munched. That wandering corpse was to only hold Carver up for a few seconds, as she'd glimpsed back to see the enraged man shoving the walker out of the way, knocking the clumsy corpse over as he ran at full speed after her, faster than she'd ever known him capable of going.

Clementine had been headed for the brook that Luke had gone to, the one someway along off that winding trail and down a steep slope through the trees. Clementine hoped that she could get to Luke before Carver got to her first, but he had been gaining on her quickly, the path loose with rocks and covered in ice beneath the thin layer of fresh fallen snow. The elements slowed her down even more; no matter what Clementine had done, she just couldn't run away fast enough.

But she was close, so close to the brook that she could hear it.

Clementine had gone to open her mouth and shout out into the woods for her friend's help…only for nothing to come out, as if she'd been punched in the gut. It was all because she'd remembered something.

The gun, Luke had given her the gun! The pistol that had only half a clip left in it, he'd left it with her in that house for protection while he'd gone to get water for their trip. Clementine had been stupid though, she'd never picked the thing up from the kitchen counter, not even when she'd gone upstairs in a daze over Nicky, as she hadn't been thinking straight. What a great thing to do, as if she hadn't learnt her lesson the last time when it got Omid killed.

Luke, he had only the machete on him and that was it. Bringing a knife to a gun fight-that machete, it wouldn't have done anything up against a loaded gun, and if Carver were to have found out from the both of them what'd happen to his baby, he would have thought twice about shooting them dead.

Running to Luke, it had been a mistake. She'd realized he would only get hurt too, and with every bend in that path through those trees, Clementine was afraid she would see him strolling back up that hill with those bottles of water. She'd been luring danger right to him! And then, there'd been the festering panic at that time of the unknown, that what if Luke was already dead? What if Carver had killed him before he'd gone into the house and he just hadn't said?

She couldn't take Carver on her own; not without a weapon. She'd been running out of both time and energy, with Carver close to catching up to her that Clementine almost thought she could feel him breathing down her neck. With her lungs heaving with exhaustion, muscles burning as the cold flushed her cheeks red; Clementine had soon spotted that cut away through the dense underbrush in those trees, hearing the sound of the brook flowing somewhere nearby clearer than ever.

In that moment she'd made her choice, and that was to protect her friend.

Keeping her head fixed forward as not to draw attention to the hidden trail, Clementine ran straight past it. As that man closed in on her and with her body near out of stamina, Clementine had sucked in a deep breath of air and screamed out the name of her last and only friend left in the world, and had prayed that he'd still been alive to hear it.

"_**LUKE!**_"

Carver had run by the hidden trail too, relief temporally having flooded her thoughts when he did, a relief that was soon gone some few strides after when Clementine's foot slipped on a frozen puddle on the path she saw one second too late. She'd fallen down painfully on her side, bashing her elbow along with her hip as part of her face was scratched up by the rocky ground.

Frantic, Clementine went to get up again, when she was struck in the back of the head by Carver's revolver, just as she'd been about to stand. Without mercy he'd kicked her in the stomach too, _hard_, the impact knocking both Clementine over onto her back and the air from her lungs. Before she was able to catch her breath, that hand closed tightly around her throat as Carver pinned her to the ground.

"Where is she? Where is my child!? _ANSWER ME!_"

Clementine couldn't have given one, even if she'd been able to speak, there wouldn't have been an answer worth saying to have gotten Carver to stop. He was too far gone in the head; a truth or lie, he might've killed her anyway, left her to die on that path in the woods for not letting up where his baby was or being able to accept Nicky was dead. Or maybe he'd already known...

Her legs kicked uselessly against him, scratching at Carver's wrist desperate for the air being choked out of her. When Clementine failed to say anything and did nothing other than struggle, Carver slammed her head against the ground from where she laid, spots appearing in her vision as the ache in the back of her bruised head intensified tenfold.

Those dark eyes filled with nothing but murderous intent like they had been the day he killed Kenny and Sarita, Carver had shoved that gun in her face, words hissed out between his teeth with his breath stinking putrid. "I'll ask you nicely again, where is she? Tell me now, because I've just about had it with you and your games girl!"

Clementine's lungs had been on fire, hardly able to focus on what he was saying as all she'd been thinking of was about getting away before she was strangled to death. She'd clawed a hand at the earth, trying to find a heavy enough rock to smash into the side of Carver's head, yet Clementine could clutch at nothing but icy pebbles and dirt; her arms too short to reach high enough to even poke her thumbs in Carver's eyes as Christa had once done to a creep who'd snuck into their tent. In those dying efforts, Clementine grabbed a handful of those tiny stones and chucked them at Carver's face. Despite many of those stones falling on her, it'd done the trick, blinding the man long enough for Clementine to lift one of her legs out to kick him off. Gasping and coughing she'd crawled away.

She didn't even make it onto her feet when that arm wrapped around her and Carver pulled her to him into a chokehold, threatening to snap her neck like a twig as another scream was silenced by that hand to have clamped over her mouth.

"You little wretch! So that's how it is, huh? If you won't talk, then why don't we go and ask the farm boy where she is? I'm sure Luke will be far more negotiable when-"

A sickening wet _**crack**_, like a blade cutting through a watermelon, and a warm liquid splattered across Clementine's head from behind. The arm around her neck slipped away, that hand over her mouth falling limp along with it, allowing her to breathe again as she fell forward onto her knees. And like a puppet with its strings cut, Carver collapsed down dead on the ground next to her, blood pouring out from the gaping hole in the back of his head like a disgusting water fountain. But all she could see were those eyes, those eyes of Carver's just staring blank and lifeless up at her with his face contorted in shock that was to stay frozen there, even in death.

He was gone...

A thick puddle of blood was spreading out from the man's split open skull, near to reaching Clementine there on her hands and knees when she'd nearly screamed out at someone suddenly grabbing her arm. She had almost gone to fight them too, until she'd seen that it was Luke, looking and sounding worried as hell as he'd pulled her up.

"Clem it's alright, it's me!"

She'd been too shaken up to say much, just able to give short answers to most of what Luke was to ask her that day over what'd happened, and he'd looked shaken up too, not able to stop trying to rub Carver's blood off himself even when she was sure she couldn't see any. Clementine was just glad they were still alive, but scared too, at how close they'd been to that being a different story.

If it was true in Carver being alone, they hadn't waited around to find out. They'd gone straight back to the house, gotten their things and left in that rust bucket of a car that only got them fifteen or so miles before it packed up on them, but at least it got them some distance away from that place. Yet from then on they were more vigilant than ever, never separating like that again and always, _always _watching each other's backs.

All the while, Clementine kept questioning to herself how it had all come to this? How come...how come, it was just they who were the last ones left? There were so many times Clementine thought about that day in the cabin when Carver showed up and wished that she'd grabbed that knife or locked the door so he couldn't get inside in the first place. Too often as well, did Clementine wish that she had told Lee all those years ago that she had seen Ben behaving strangely in those days before the bandits attacked; that one got to her the most.

So many regrets, so many things. How different might their lives have been if not for those mistakes? Or maybe, nothing would have changed at all, and Clementine would've still been journeying alone with Luke; family and friends lost on both sides, with the past never going away and future just a hole in the ground waiting for them to fall in. The closer they got to Wellington, the more did that old saying 'too good to be true' ring in her ears.

Walkers, cannibals, bandits, and twisted psychos; when would it ever stop? When would they be free from all this?

* * *

Two and half years ago when Lee died, Clementine hadn't left the jewelry store, not right away. To see her parents dead as walkers and then for him to go too that same day, the one and only person she ever came close to calling a second father, it had been too much for her young mind to take. In a naïve belief and in refusal to accept the truth, she thought that maybe if she stayed there long enough holding Lee's lifeless hand in hers, time would go back to the way things were before when everything was fine, or just maybe, Lee would wake up again and they could leave Savannah together. But Lee wouldn't ever wake up, Clementine had made sure of that when fulfilling his dying request not to turn into one of those things...

Lee had always been there through thick and thin right from day one; she'd felt lost without him, as if her life would end too and she was just waiting for it, for all of it to end. But then, she'd remembered all the things he'd said, how he'd encouraged her to be brave and keep on living, and Clementine knew she couldn't just stay sitting there. Lee wasn't coming back.

It had taken Clementine god knows how long to summon the strength to stand again, trying to remember where Lee had said to find Omid and Christa as she'd cut open that dead security guard with some broken glass and rubbed the coagulated blood onto her clothes. She'd looked back at her dead friend one final time, before climbing those stairs to the unknown as her journey out of Savannah began; crossing over rooftops, sneaking along alleyways and walking tearfully among the crowds of undead, until rolling fields she'd wandered through, teeming on exhaustion into that dawn.

When she had learned from Omid and Christa how Lee got bitten, Clementine blamed herself for it nearly every single day, just as much as she blamed herself for every other life that could've been saved if she had been more careful.

_**'It wasn't supposed to be this way, why….I told you, I said to keep it on you at all times! I said Clementine!'**_

Christa's words still cut her deep, grief-stricken from Omid and unable to trust Clementine with a firearm ever again. The woman fell into more despair when her child was born stillborn weeks later; the smiles and laughter all gone by then, with her friend becoming a ghost with each passing day that wanted to up and vanish. The only thing keeping Christa going was the promise she made to Lee to look out for Clementine; maybe that's why she was so set on them going to Wellington, not just to find them safety, but to be free of that responsibility so she could just...

The times Clementine saw Christa holding that switchblade in her hand at night, when she'd believed Clementine was sleeping; the days the woman went without saying a word or eating anything, even when they had plenty of food on them, they were things of everyday life for the both of then, as was Clementine's fear for that woman who could no longer look at her with warmth in her eyes.

Christa wanted to die, she never shared that with Clementine, but she didn't have to for Clementine to see the hope and will to live that had burnt and died in her. Christa, had reminded her frequently to be grateful for every new day they lived to see and to be grateful to still have air in their lungs. Yet those nights where sleep did not come easy, if worrying about walkers or what Christa might do to herself, Clementine silently questioned if it was all worth it, if it would be better just to hold her breath and slip away, rather than keep fighting if it would just lead to nothing.

To give in and die? If that was what Clementine had really wanted, she would have done it by now. She felt it from deep inside that even when times were tough and more frightening than any make-believe monsters under the bed, Clementine still wanted to live. As much as it pained her, she wouldn't let past mistakes change her or the loss of so many to force her down into giving up on living. Lee and her parents, they would want her to keep surviving, to keep fighting. For them, Clementine would continue doing that for as long as she possibly could.

Nobody lived forever; everybody died sooner or later. Clementine was well aware of that impossibility to defeat death permanently, it was just that…she was scared that when her time eventually came, it would be one where she was in pain, whether from disease or being eaten alive by walkers, or somebody just trying to murder her in cold blood. She was afraid of that day coming, after all the friends and family gone from her life, Clementine really did feel like she was just waiting in line to be next.

If she was going to die, then…

That drunken dizziness overwhelmed her in that first attempt to stand up that early morning. Clementine soon sat her butt back down on the bed, hugging that blanket draped around her shoulders as she waited for the room to stop spinning before trying again, slower. Walking with small careful steps in case that faintness returned, Clementine was able to hold her own that second time, and felt a little happier for it as she could get around better than those days before.

If only when standing at the door however, she hadn't accidentally reached for the knob with the wrong hand, or rather stump. Some habits just weren't willing to be forgotten so easily it seemed.

Mentally cursing herself, Clementine opened the door of that bedroom with her right hand instead and not with a stump, and stepped out onto the landing. From all around, the farmhouse was quiet and it was almost peaceful…well, all except for those light sounding snores coming from the bedroom across from hers. The door was open a crack where she could see Luke sprawled out on that double bed, the blanket half off him with a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth too.

Yep, definitely asleep.

Smiling a little, Clementine did her best to remain quiet, avoiding those few creaky floorboards on her way to the bathroom as she carefully shut the door behind her. Up on tiptoes, her hand retrieved the thermometer from the cabinet, catching her half-awake reflection in the mirror when Clementine closed it. Sticking the thermometer under her tongue, slowly she sat herself down on the edge of that bathtub where, she began to count in her head. Forty seconds and then an extra twenty more just to be sure as Clementine rubbed her tired eyes and peered up at that small grubby window, where clouds floated across the blue above that farmland that she could see beyond the thick chunks of snow melting down the glass.

Luke had used that same thermometer over the first couple days that they had spent here at the farmhouse; every morning and evening and right before bed he used it. Like clockwork he'd asked how she was feeling too, if she needed anything, if she was hungry…it got really annoying. Yet on the third day when Luke stopped taking her temperature, Clementine still found herself waking up and doing it herself as she did this morning like every other before she started her day.

A routine done out of paranoia, or just being extra careful? Clementine never could figure it out, but when she was to check that thermometer again as she'd done before, she relaxed just a little more each time.

_'No fever.'_

Her feet carried a little lighter, back into the cabinet the thermometer went and hopefully for the last time she thought to herself as she left that bathroom to get dressed into some fresh clothes and wake a snoring Luke up.

If Clementine was going to die, then it wasn't to be anytime soon, not just yet.


	3. Chapter 3: Sticks and Stones

A/N:This was once part of a longer chapter. After revision, what was once the third and final chapter has now been divided up and has become what are now Chapters 3 and 4. This was a personal choice because I had rushed the final chapter when I first wrote it, all for the reasons that I was about to leave on a trip and just wanted to get it out, something I regretted later. Back then I had wanted to cut it in half, so that's why I have done so now.

The changes and new scenes are listed on my profile page, so feel free to check them out.

* * *

_**The Walking Dead  
Growing Pains**_

_Chapter 3: Sticks and Stones_

* * *

Clementine wasn't that big of a fan of farms. She used to like them, having all her silly childhood dreams of living on one someday where she'd get to feed the chickens, and goats and have fun tractor rides and stuff. After what happened at Hershel's farm with his son and at the St. John's Dairy however, places like that had lost their innocent charm about them without throwing an apocalypse into it.

This farm had a few secrets of its own too, though nothing as sinister as cannibals. It once belonged to a middle-aged couple, Mr. and Mrs. Harding, who had had three sons and one younger daughter. Like the dairy and Hershel's place, it was a family-run business and from what Clementine could tell, both Mr. and Mrs. Harding and their children used to be really decent people. They were the old-fashioned sort, owning not much in computers or many techno gadgets aside from the old television set, radio and some corded phones too. The Harding's twins Jerry and Jacky had adapted well to this way of life, all too glad to work in that family business together with their parents, as too had their younger sister, Jill. Jason meanwhile, the oldest yet quietest of the Hardings was the one to seek his chances at life in the city and make something of himself, hence the spare room for when he would come to visit and share his stories of that concrete jungle to his parents and siblings over supper.

Clementine had never met any of them, but she knew all about that family thanks to the photo albums, cards, diaries and letters left lying about inside the farmhouse, all of which she had taken the time to look through while recovering. Clementine had done this mostly out of boredom, but in some ways as well, she was a little curious about those who had once lived here and felt it her obligation to learn more about them, since she might not still be breathing right now if not for this farm being here miles from anywhere else.

Apart from things being in disarray from a few scavengers hunting about, there were no signs of a struggle like there had been with Clementine's babysitter inside her old house, as if the Hardings had all simply up and left. Initially Luke put it down to the owners having abandoned the farm without packing for the trip or having been away in town when the dead started walking. Neither was the truth though on investigating further, because by the looks of things all the vehicles were still in the garage, all made unusable thanks to scavengers who'd drained every tank dry and had even taken some of the tires and parts from under the hoods too. But maybe the most obvious clue was that nothing had been packed inside the house, for the wardrobes were still full of clothes and no suitcases were missing.

There was only one car parked outside the farmhouse and it too had most of its parts removed. The driver door was left wide open with snow covering as much of the interior as the exterior that it resembled more of an igloo than a car. It'd been left there a long time, much longer than a few months. And as that snow began to melt away, it was obvious that even with all that rust it'd once been a fancy car, too fancy for a farm. Not only that, Luke had mentioned when first arriving here after the attack from those walkers, both the front and back doors were unlocked; unless there was a key hidden under a potted plant or the porch somewhere, scavengers would've just bust their way in.

So it narrowed down to one unpleasant outcome, in that the farmhouse had been left unlocked and cars still stationed where they were long before their parts were taken...because the owners hadn't gone _anywhere_. Unfortunately, they were eventually proven right as when more of that snow melted during a break in the harsh winter weather, five shallow graves were revealed near the barn, along with the decomposed corpse of a man by them, with a gun frozen-solid in his bony hand; _suicide._

Clementine couldn't tell for sure, but by the clothes the corpse had on, he looked dressed like the Jason she'd seen in the photographs.

"Do you want me to help?"

It felt stupid of her asking that. She still wasn't well enough to be doing much physical work like burying the dead; staying on her own two feet was just enough for her to manage with at the moment. Yet the thing was, Luke had been quiet for much too long and his silence always worried Clementine, especially now.

Luke's family, Nick along with his mom and Uncle Pete—they had been good friends for decades. It was how they all knew each other before the dead came knocking and how they sought refuge within Carver's camp together; the camp that slowly became corrupted and was no longer the haven they'd seen it to be. He didn't like to talk about it much or of what had happened to his parents before he got to that camp, although Clementine already knew the story. To not speak of it much and to keep moving forward was just Luke's way of coping. Anything he did mention was just of the good times from before, from the fondest of memories to the downright reckless ones from his youth.

Discovering the graves of that family and the corpse before them, it'd triggered something in Luke—bad memories he didn't want brought out. That was why Clementine asked to help him after he went silent about burying the man out of decency, because she knew all too well what that pain was like in being the sole survivor of your family and feeling like your life would never be the same again; she _still _felt that way, even now.

The look Luke gave her was one Clementine had seen on others a thousand times before, the 'you're just a little kid' face that sprung up whenever she offered to help and was waved off like an unwanted pest. There were other things at play this time of course; the lack of blood reducing her activity as well as the fact that she was missing part of an arm, all coming to the single conclusion that her offer was just an empty one, an offer she couldn't really fulfil.

"Nah it's fine; I'll manage. Just go on back inside, alright?"

Clementine didn't like Luke's answer, but she didn't argue with it. He needed to be alone and that was fine, so long as he didn't do anything stupid. She'd been around enough depressed and suicidal people to have made her over-cautious from such things, not that she could see Luke going that far...

"Actually," Clementine heard Luke speak out as she'd been going to leave him, and yet on her turning back around Luke added nothing else, appearing indecisive about what it was he actually wanted to say. It was his eyes though, those damn brown eyes that always gave away too much on what going on inside; it was a human flaw of his that had him a sore loser at poker and the easiest to get the truth out from.

Somehow her friend got a hold of himself, enough to focus on her. "Why don't you…those cans, think you can bring 'em out here? Gonna be needin' 'em."

Clementine knew which cans he was referring to, the ones they had stacked on the kitchen counter, five of them. Luke had been talking about taking some along for when they'd finally decided to leave the farm, something about stringing them up to make some lurker detection system he'd been thinking up in the worst case scenario they had to sleep rough in the outdoors. Somehow though, Clementine got the hunch that wasn't what Luke wanted them for right now, not when they had so many fences and stone walls around this place.

"For what?"

Luke's attention was slipping again, that troublesome look drifting back. Yet he still gave a light pat of her shoulder as he passed her by, heading off to go find a shovel for the first time since having to bury Rebecca's baby.

"I'll tell ya later," he answered. "Just let me deal with this first."

* * *

When her parents left on vacation, Clementine had been upset with them, sort of.

They always went to Savannah every year together as a family for as long as Clementine could remember. But that year, it was Mom and Dad's tenth wedding anniversary, and with school still going on and them wanting a private trip away with just the two of them, they'd chosen to leave her at home with a babysitter for the whole week, which meant a lot of bad things…

No fun boat rides.

No tasty desserts.

Homework, homework and even more _homework_.

Clementine was grumpy all the week leading up to their trip. Every day she'd asked if she could come with them, even going about doing chores around the house to the extremes of standing on a foot stool to wash the dishes in the hopes Mom and Dad would see what a good girl she was being; it was really childish stuff. Nothing she was to do however made a single bit of difference, for her parents hadn't changed their minds. Only now when she was much older could Clementine see the way she'd acted didn't really have anything to do with boat rides or the desserts she would be missing out on which had her feeling so blue; Clementine just didn't want to be left behind.

It was the day before they went, after their last meal together, her Dad had given her that baseball cap from his collection as a sort of early birthday gift. It once belonged to a famous player of a baseball team, a man called _Dave _something who her Dad was a huge fan of growing up. It was why he held onto that collection in his study for so long, comprised of baseball cards, signed autographs, T-shirts and lots of other neat things too. That cap though, it'd been the prized possession of Dad's collection, something he cherished a lot. Clementine hadn't truly realized the importance of it then, but for her Dad to have entrusted that baseball cap to her, even just as a present, it was a huge deal. Yet even with what it was worth to him, he had still done it anyway, all to let her know in his own special way that even though Clementine wasn't going with them to Savannah and they would be apart, she still meant the world to her parents.

She used to wonder sometimes what would've happened if they'd let her go, if she might've turned into a walker too and been roaming those streets alongside with them, just like how, despite everything, Mom and Dad had still stayed together even in death.

Was a part of them in there somewhere? Did anything left of them recognize her outside the hotel that night?

Clementine never saw them again, not anywhere in the streets full of walkers. They disappeared when she was helping a half-conscious Lee over to that jewelry store, and not once did she catch a glimpse of them when leaving Savannah. Sometimes even now, when coming across the walkers and small herds out there, Clementine would scan the rotten faces of the dead, still half-expecting to see them again. If she ever did get that chance, if it ever happened, then she'd put them to rest if she could. Nobody deserved to carry on like that. Clementine just wished she could've done something for them back then.

Memories were special, but they were really delicate too. After two years, Clementine was already starting to forget; the clarity of the times spent with her parents fading away along with their voices. It was the same about everyone else too, for the friends she had grown up with in her neighborhood and at school, to the survivors she'd forged new friendships with after the old world ended. One day, they would just be vague memories that she would struggle to recall completely like those when she was little; warped and blurred out of focus from what they once used to be.

Memories, they were few things she had left. Just like her baseball cap, that was the last thing she owned of her Dad's. Clementine was being sentimental sure, but she didn't care. Little things like that, in a world like this? They were worth much more to her than gold or diamonds or any other kind of riches out there.

That's why…

"Now remember, just like before."

Clementine stared at that row of cans lined up along the fence by those stables, the ones they kept locked up because of all the dead cattle in there that had starved in their pens. It was the same story around most of that farm, the skeletons of chickens or horses that had just frozen or starved to death, whichever the two. Or maybe walkers got some of them, the walkers who used to be the family here.

There were no animal remains in that small field, just the snow and patches of grass poking through the whiteness. By that fence that would've kept cattle from wandering out, dozens of small blue plastic pellets littered the ground where hoof marks would've been instead, and with every pull of that trigger there would sound out a tiny _ping_, as another pellet hit its mark, and so another can would be knocked off.

There had been a BB gun in the attic, once belonging to one of the Harding sons, judging by all the boyish stuff that was in that box. The only gun they had on them was empty, and the gun on Jason's corpse was out of ammo too. Even with a real loaded gun, firing it for practice would've just drawn the dead on them and wasted bullets anyway. It didn't matter if it wasn't really an actual gun; the most important thing at that moment was Clementine just learning how to shoot again, and with one arm.

It definitely felt weird and took some getting used to, but Clementine had gotten the hang of it again easily after a few tries, soon shooting those cans off that fence with the same precision as before, as if she still had both hands. It was a real testament to how skilled a marksman Clementine was, that Lee would've been proud for sure.

Luke however had little enthusiasm from at her accomplishment, his praise a half empty one.

"Good job."

Slowly, Clementine lowered the BB gun, "But?"

"But what?" Luke repeated confused.

Clementine went to cross her arms, stopping when the action aggravated her stump and so she lowered them again; all the same, the pain did nothing to break her challenging gaze from her friend.

"There's something you're not saying. What is it?" she asked.

Luke had his thinking cap on and that was overstating things judging by how he kept looking between that BB gun and her. This meant only two things: either it was bad news, or it was bad news that she really didn't want to hear.

"It's nothin' major; it's good you can still shoot great and all, not taking that for granted," her friend was to say, rubbing the back of his neck before pointing down at that BB gun. "Just been thinkin', it ain't really all that heavy, not like the real thing."

"Oh," Clementine's confidence was tested at those words, raising that BB gun that suddenly didn't feel as comfortable as it did before. "Is that a problem?"

"Maybe, depends if…" Luke wasn't to finish. Instead with a glance over one shoulder in the direction of the farmhouse hidden out of sight behind the barn, he gently took the BB gun from her. "Lemme try something; I think I saw some stuff that can help. I'll just be a sec with this."

Back to the house and into the kitchen they were to go, where Clementine had sat at that table and observed Luke rather curiously while he got to work like some handyman on a mission.

So old-fashioned were the previous owners of that farmhouse, they had a cool looking antique pendulum scale instead of a modern one, with the old-fashioned styled weights and everything. It was these weights Luke was picking up, and with the use of some duct tape from a drawer, he started taping them to the sides of the BB gun in places where it wouldn't interfere with her sight down the notch or her grip, while every so often testing every now and again that the guns' weights levelled up more or less the same.

Five minutes and definitely not a sec later, they were out there in the cold again. With those cans soon put back in their place and the duo standing where they had been before ten long strides from the fence, Luke held out that funny looking BB gun to her, covered in duct tape and weights as if it was a kid's mischievous doing and not an adult's handiwork.

"Here, see if this makes any difference."

Clementine took it and as soon as Luke let go, that difference sure as hell was felt. The sudden weight from those scales nearly had Clementine drop the BB gun out of surprise, having been used to carrying much less during practice. Quickly she went to stabilize the weapon with her left hand, only to realize she couldn't, because it wasn't exactly there anymore.

Dang it.

"You alright?" Luke asked and quickly Clementine nodded. Although he didn't look like he believed her, his gaze hindering on her and the BB gun she hadn't raised any higher than her waist. "Think you can try takin' a shot?"

Clementine nodded again, squeezing that BB gun weakly. "I'll try."

It was no use. She realized it on raising her arm to take aim at those cans that she had lost it. No matter how much Clementine was to try steadying that BB gun, it didn't improve her aim. The gun just kept shaking in her hand, the additional weight simply too much of a strain on her one arm to fire an accurate enough shot.

Clementine always used both hands when shooting a gun in the past. If she didn't, then the weapon would sway all over the place and she couldn't get a perfect shot, and that was exactly what was happening now. Every one of those plastic pellets she fired missed, bouncing off the wooden fence or landing on the snowy ground. There was nothing Clementine could do, for the problem didn't lay in concentration, but in the cruel truth that she just wasn't strong enough to hold that gun steady anymore one-handed; Clementine just kept _missing_.

When that BB gun was finally empty, the end result for what she saw said everything. She hadn't hit a single can, not even by accident.

Clementine felt like she couldn't breathe. "I can't do it."

"It's okay, just try-"

Even the mere attempt from Luke to give some encouragement frayed down at her temper in an instant, destroying what patience Clementine had. With a pathetic swing of her right arm, she almost hit his foot with that BB gun as it was thrown to the ground in a burst of anger that was to stun even him.

"I said I can't do it, Luke! I CAN'T!" Clementine shouted with eyes stinging with tears and she took off in a run for the house, not listening or looking back at the friend she left behind as she ignored the tiredness in her limbs and the violent beating in her chest for as long as she could.

"Clem, wait!"

She hated it, so much she couldn't stand it! She'd practiced so hard all these years, only for what? For a stupid walker to bite her and ruin _everything!_ Because of her ugly stump, Clementine was never going to be able shoot properly again, not ever good enough to hit a walker where it mattered most. She'd be a lousy shot for the rest of her life, a crippled lousy shot.

Why couldn't she have been more careful that day in the woods? Clementine should've been and this was the price she had to pay for it, losing the one survival skill that really mattered to her…

It wasn't fair.

That short run from outside those stables to the back of the farmhouse was enough to have Clementine keeling over from the dizziness and fatigue that took her right off her feet. Crouched there in the snow, with her heart threatening to give out on itself as did her conscious state of mind, Clementine tried to catch her breath. She waited for her pulse to slow and the light-headedness to go before even daring to move again, managing to crawl up the back steps of that porch and no further, where she sat resting with her face against her knees, feeling the heat of the sun on the back of her neck as it bled through those clouds growing vaster and darker with every day.

Crippled and weak, how on earth were they supposed to leave soon when she was still like this? Clementine needed weeks, maybe months of rest, not days. But they didn't have much food left; if they stayed here too long, they were at risk of not having enough for the trip. Their supplies were already scarce enough that both had to watch what they ate. Time wasn't on their side.

What the hell were they going to do?

Some minutes went by before Luke had gone to seek her out, the crunching of boots in the snow coming up from the stables alerting Clementine to his presence as she peered up from her knees. Fortunately by then she had stopped gasping for air and hadn't felt so faint anymore; Clementine was glad for that and that Luke hadn't seen her collapse, as she didn't want the attention or to have him be more concerned for her wel-being than he already was. Clementine just regretted not getting away far enough, maybe at least up to her room so Luke didn't have to see her sulk on those steps like some big baby.

Oh well, at least she wasn't crying this time.

Clementine kept her head low as her friend approached, hiding her eyes and much of her face beneath that baseball cap, too ashamed to meet his gaze. The moment Luke stopped some paces away, before anything could be said, a single word escaped from Clementine's parched lips.

"Sorry."

Luke stood there some seconds more before going to sit down next to her on that porch step, her friend sounding more apologetic than herself. "No need to be sayin' things like that, the fault's mine. Didn't mean to push you so hard. God knows it hasn't been easy, you don't have to be tell me that."

He wasn't referring to just practicing shooting with the BB gun, it was to do with everything else too. Losing part of her arm, it affected how Clementine dealt with everyday tasks now, from changing her clothes to simply carrying stuff; anything that usually required two hands to get the job done. Then there were the things she was just simply incapable of doing anymore, like tying her shoelaces up or doing up those hair ties in her hair properly; Clementine always had to ask for Luke's help now for those particular things, even for the stupidest of tasks like doing up the zip on her coat when it got stuck, as if she was some three-year-old who'd never learned to do it herself.

Being this handicapped, it was bad enough being in a world like this, but to have a disability that stopped her from shooting like she used to and from just being a normal kid, it sucked, it really did...

Slowly Clementine raised her head, where the frozen soil and grass almost seemed to sparkle in the soft rays of that sun. Staring at their footprints in the patches of snows, hers noticeably smaller than Luke's, it brought out a confession in her she hadn't really meant to say.

"It's all I have left of Lee."

"Huh?"

"Shooting a gun, he taught me how after a lot of our group died, said I had to protect myself," Clementine hugged her legs with that one arm of hers, exhaling a breath into that cold winter air. "He taught me lots of things, but that's the one that really stuck. I guess that's why it's so important..."

She didn't have to say anymore. Luke already knew what had happened in Savannah the day after and what had become of Lee. Even now looking back, Clementine couldn't believe how naïve she was then, in being so hopeful that she'd find her parents somewhere hiding in one of the buildings, that everything would work out okay once they were reunited. But maybe "naïve" wasn't the right word; maybe she'd just been in denial and hadn't realized it. Clementine never wanted to believe for a second that they might be gone, or that Lee, who had been a pillar of strength from the beginning and was everything a parent should be, could ever disappear from her life. He'd really reminded her of both of them, Mom and Dad. It was why after all these years Clementine still kept her hair short like she promised to and why she still used two hair ties instead of one like how Lee had told her to, because they were all the little things that kept him with her; it was the same for all the things Mom and Dad taught her too.

But now, now she wouldn't be able to cut or tie her hair up with her own two hands and the only photo she had of Lee was long lost in the fire back at Carver's camp. Shooting a gun, it had meant a lot to her, not for being able to pull a trigger and hit a target, but that it was the last thing Lee had ever taught her before their group was torn apart completely and she left Savannah alone…

"This Lee, he was like a father to you wasn't he?"

It was strange hearing it come from somebody else, especially when Clementine hadn't really spoken of it aloud to anyone. Yet, it was the truth if Clementine ever heard it, that she could only give a faint nod as she picked at the fabric of her jeans, working the threads loose from a small tear above her knee.

From where he sat on that step, Luke shifted uncomfortably from something on his mind that he was soon to share with her after that long pause. "Nick he uh, he used to say that sorta thing too, about Pete. He said so back when he got bit too and a bunch of other stuff…"

That news was hardly a surprise for Clementine, given how upset Nick had been at losing his uncle. But it gave her enough courage to face her friend once again. "He did?"

"Yup."

Curiosity took hold of Clementine . "What about the other stuff? What else did Nick say?"

"Oh...y'know Nick stuff, Nick things. But, he did say something you ought to be knowin' of," Luke confessed.

Clementine blinked. "What?"

"Can't remember the words exactly, but it was roughly along the lines of," Luke cleared his throat and pulling the worst Nick voice ever, he quoted in that deep husky voice: "Don't go letting that kid boss you around, Luke. She's a stubborn one, that girl is."

Clementine scowled silently at her friend, stifling what few chuckles came from him and his poor impersonation. "I'm not bossy!"

"Well uh…hey, I'm just tellin' you what he said alright? Don't mean I agree with it." Luke said with a forced cough and looking not the least bit convincing in disguising that previous smile of his.

Glaring ahead at the hollow shell of that farm trapped within that winter, Clem tucked her arm around her waist. "If this is supposed to be cheering me up, you're not doing a good job."

"Right, right I'm sorry," Luke scratched his chin, soon to speak his mind before that awkward silence could settle in again. "If it er, makes you feel any better about it, that son of a gun gave me a wedgie once."

Pulling a face, slowly Clementine turned towards her friend again, eyeing him strangely. "Nick did that? _Really?_"

"Mhmm."

"…When you were kids?"

An immediate 'yes' was what Clementine expected, after all the crazy times Luke told her of his and Nick's childhood and all the crazy things in it. Yet the face he was to pull there and then, with that uncomfortable and slightly amused 'I've said too much' expression, it revealed everything it had to.

"If by kids you mean stone drunk, then yeah, kids," Luke said almost fondly. "Was when our business went bust. The last night before we closed up for good, we thought 'to hell with it' and downed enough to give our livers one hell of a beatin'; gave ourselves a mighty hangover too, the worst….so anyway, on the walk back while we're singing like the couple of fools we were, there I go falling down on my drunken ass in the road and Nick, who can barely stand himself, goes to help me thinkin' he can just pull me up by the back of my belt. You can figure out the rest."

"Oh…_oh!_" Clementine shuffled her heels back to the touching point of those wooden steps, trying not to crack a smile as much as she already was. Wedgies, the school prank she did not miss. "It…that does sound like Nick, I guess."

"Yeah, only he'd have been genius enough to be that stupid right?" Luke said, as if he was giving his deceased friend a medal of honor for drunkenness. "You've should've seen him though, guy was laughing so hard he was weepin' tears; pissed his pants too."

"Gross," as much as that was true, it still somehow coaxed a tiny giggle from her. It wasn't to last long though, because it was painful to be talking about Nick again when he wasn't around anymore. Hearing those stories of how they used to live, it made Clementine sad at not having gotten the chance to really see more of that fun side of Nick. He was often so grouchy and down in the dumps about his mom and Pete, that there were few times that he ever was the Nick that Luke spoke to her of; the Nick from before.

They'd all changed; they'd needed to in order to survive. Even as impossible as the thought might've been, it would've been cool if they all could've somehow met each other under different circumstances, despite the reality being that if it weren't for the dead walking, Clementine would have never gotten to know any of the people she'd met these last couple years, especially Lee.

Clementine would have done anything for her parents to have come back home alive. She would have even cut off her other arm if it meant they could be here now beside her. As bleak as things were and had been, at least some good had come from this new way of life. She'd made friends, good friends. Even if they weren't all alive anymore, she was grateful to have been given that chance to know them, even little baby Nicky too. But what she wouldn't give for them all to still be breathing, what she wouldn't give…

A thread from her jeans pulled loose, Clementine rolled it around in her fingers slowly, pinching it between her fingernails.

"I miss him...I miss everyone."

Lightly Luke nodded, his expression morbid as hers. "Me too, kid."

Things went quiet between them for a while, the stillness of those empty farmlands beyond that house both peaceful, yet _eerie_. A world of silence, that's what it would become whenever there were no dead or living around for miles to disturb it. The sounds of modern life, they were just one of many things Clementine had taken for granted, like hearing an airplane flying thousands of feet in the sky overhead or just the sound of laughter from the other kids playing on the street…it felt so alien, thinking of it now.

But the sounds she probably missed the most, were of Mom and Dad just telling them they loved her.

Mournfully Clementine ran her fingers back and forth along her left arm near the stump, where the sleeve of that coat was neatly folded up and held in place with some safety pins to prevent the cold getting in. Her vision had been near to clouding over again, when Luke suddenly snapped his fingers and got up. "Shit, ain't I one goofball of a jackass."

"What, what's wrong?" Clementine asked completely out of the loop. She was surprised to see that her friend looked _happy _as he placed both hands on his hips like some comic book superhero.

"Thought of something is all, an idea."

"…"

"Don't give me that face; it's a good one this time."

"…"

"…Just come on."

Snow crunching under foot, Clementine reluctantly agreed to follow Luke after some insistence that this idea was indeed a good idea. To that little homemade target range they walked back to where those crummy cans awaited her, taunting her idly with their presence while she and Luke searched around on the ground for those blue plastic pellets since she had used up the last of what was in the box.

After collecting enough to reload that BB gun brushed clean of snow, Luke asked a question of her. "Now, how's the arm feelin'?"

Frowning, Clementine glanced down at her left arm, and with a shrug, answered with the only thing that came to mind.

"Stumped."

Luke tugged her baseball cap down over her eyes, that temporary act of blinding Clementine doing nothing to hide the amusement in his voice.

"Nice one smart aleck," Luke said, trying to keep it serious. "But I meant on the pain sides of things. It's still hurtin' you right? How much?"

Clementine straightened up her hat, staring at him suspiciously. "As much as you would expect?"

Her arm didn't hurt as much as it used to, but it still hurt, especially so if she accidentally knocked it on anything. The nights were the worst too, Clem finding it difficult to sleep or focus at times when it felt like somebody was poking at the end of that stump with knife 24/7. No surprises that she was grumpy most days from it, because the pain just never went away and those painkillers weren't doing much to give her reprieve from it. What Clementine needed was something muchstronger like morphine, although until they got on the move again that wouldn't be possible.

Luke gave a short nod, pondering over a thought or two that had him scratching his chin again. The BB gun still in his possession, Luke knelt by Clementine's left side, and pressed his hand with a light squeeze on the bend of her arm several inches above the stump, before letting go again. "What about there; feel anything? I mean it doesn't sting too much does it?"

Clementine shook her head, studying her friend, even more confused. "No, not really. Why?"

It was then Luke offered the BB gun to her, that familiar confident smile present as it was with every other plan hitched inside that brain of his. Yet strangely this time however, Clementine found herself having more faith in him than skepticism, before Luke even told her what it was.

"Cause I might've just figured out a way for you to shoot straight."

And Luke soon showed her how.

Walking around and holding her shoulders from the back, he made Clementine change her stance a little so she stood with her left side poised slightly more forward than the rest of her. Then, walking back around to her front and kneeling down, Luke raised her right arm by the hand with the BB gun held in it and positioned the limb so her right forearm rested in the bend of her stumpy left arm that Luke had been careful in raising up as well.

"There, give it a try now."

Clementine realized then what he'd done, without Luke even having to explain or for her to ask. She just felt it in the way the BB gun didn't sway in her hand anymore and how her right arm was able to take the weight of it now that it was stabilized with what remained of her left.

Concentrating, Clementine targeted the can in the very center row, lining it up with her sight. Then, taking in a deep breath and holding it, she squeezed the trigger…

There was a metallic _ping _as she hit the can the first try.

* * *

Moving on was always a difficult thing to do when finding someplace safe and secure like a home. Well, maybe not _exactly _like a home. The last place Clementine called "home" was still back in Georgia hundreds of miles away, and she doubted in her lifetime that she would ever be going back. Still, Clementine was able to find some peace there on that farm, even despite her bad experiences with farms and the tragedy that had befallen the family there. Maybe it wasn't peace it brought both Clem and Luke, but just being able to escape from the outside, if only for a while; it'd been nice.

Perhaps they could've done something, figured out a way to live there for a while since Luke knew so much about farms and growing stuff, yet with only the two of them, if anything bad was to happen to just one of them, then the other would be alone and that plan would fall apart. In a world like this, they needed a group, or history might end up repeating itself like when Clementine was alone with Christa. To be with others and to find a place to call "home," that was one of the many reasons they were going to Wellington, not just to be somewhere that had food and good defenses from the undead and bandits, but so they could find someplace safe to live and be with people they could trust. It was of no surprise then, that they weren't the only ones out here with the same dreams for a better life in mind, and not all of them made it as far as she and Luke had.

To benefit from somebody else's misfortune was something Clementine never took much joy in, and the misfortune of this particular person was a distressing one to find. There was blood all over the road, red handprints smeared along the side of an abandoned pickup truck with many more clawed into the snow where somebody had tried to escape and failed in their battle to survive. Either the driver they had stopped to go pee, or they had run out of gas, but what wasn't a mystery was how he or she met their gruesome end. And that was by walkers. The person's body lay some feet from the truck, so chewed up that there was nothing left recognizable as human other than the torn -up clothes hanging on their body like rags. This man or woman wouldn't be reanimating; there wasn't even much of a head left on the body for that to happen.

The corpse wasn't that old, if the smell of fresh blood didn't make that clear enough, that the person's death must've happened recently in the last day or so. The headlights on the pickup truck were still on too, despite it being broad daylight, so it must've stopped at night. There was a trail of bloody footprints too, a whole bunch of them leading off into the fields on their right, where Clementine could see a few undead shuffling about without a purpose in the distance like tiny ants; they were too far away to be of any concern.

No walkers were on the other side of the road either, with no trees or ditches concealing anything from sight, so nothing would be jumping out to scare them in this open an area, not without them seeing it a long way off first. The only walker within range of them was the one still feasting on the corpse; the walker was a woman in a torn filthy dress, her grey leathery skin rotten and peeling. Her hands were up to her face; she was hunched over like she might be crying, but of course that wasn't true, if those sickly gnawing sounds were anything to go by.

With a silent gesture for Clementine to remain back, Luke went sneaking up on the undead, taking it out with a quick machete strike to the back of the head before it could even react or stop eating the corpse. The female walker went down like a rock, a few twitches from the limbs and that was that, dead for good.

No, not good. Death was never good.

Sheathing the weapon after wrenching the blade free from that walker's skull, Luke made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat in eventually kneeling beside that corpse the female walker had been feasting on; so disfigured and mangled the victim was that it made even the Luke himself look unsettled by it.

"Poor bastard…"

Finding people like this who had suffered in their final moments, it never got any easier, and this person, they had suffered lots. Their bones were near stripped of everything that once made them human because of those mindless walkers, leaving that corpse resembling something like the leftover ribs her Dad once ordered at a restaurant years ago; "disgusting" just wasn't the word.

It was hard to think of walkers as human beings anymore, but that female walker had been somebody too, a daughter or a mother even maybe. Clementine tried not to think about it too much, because if the undead could do something as horrible as this to the living, then the person they were once before was long gone. Her parents, they probably would have done the same to her back in Savannah if it weren't for the walker guts smothered on her clothes back then.

A peaceful death, it seemed impossible. Didn't anybody just die of old age anymore?

"Looks like he didn't go down easy," Clementine said with pity for that guy, yet choosing not to get too close, not thinking she could stomach a step closer. She hadn't been feeling too good as it was, her pulse still drumming in her ears from that fast walk taken in those few dozen feet to reach here, that Clementine was really desperate just to sit down and take a minute's breather, and stinky half-eaten corpses really weren't helping her.

"Sure seems that way," Luke cringed, picking up a bloodied gun lying some inches next to the body and checked the clip. Empty as expected. Setting the weapon down, Luke scooched closer to the corpse, beginning to inspect the pockets of that tattered jacket stuck to that disfigured body like a gooey second skin that was unwilling to be peeled away...

He paused when he noticed Clementine still standing there and probably looking as bad as she was feeling. Perhaps sensing her dire need for a break, Luke spoke up indirectly on it.

"Clem, why don't you go on and take a look inside the truck while I search this guy? Didn't see no lurkers in there so it should be all right. Just y'know, be careful and don't wander off too far."

"Okay, sure," with a small nod she did as she was told, grateful just to get away from the gory corpse and that smell.

Clementine followed routine as always, checking under the vehicle and the back of that truck to be sure no dead lay hidden anywhere from sight. Brushing some of the melting snow away from the window on the driver's side, she balanced on her toes and peeked in, but it was like Luke had said, there was nothing dead-like inside.

Pulling the door open, a bleeping sound started up, like a warning sound. It wasn't loud, but it might draw walkers if it kept up the way it did. "W-What did I do?"

"It's the lights," Luke said as he glanced on over from where he was still inspecting the corpse, her friend appearing calm, unlike her. "Look for a uh, a turn dial, it should be right by the steerin' wheel; it's got a kinda bulb symbol on it."

Clementine climbed up onto the seat, checking around the steering wheel and soon found something to match that description. On turning the dial the correct way, the bleeping sound stopped.

Finally.

Checking the walkers hadn't been lured over by the alarm thing, Clementine slid her backpack off and set it down by the pedals by her feet, happy to be resting them at long last, almost having to resist the urge to close her eyes and take a nap right there and then in that comfy seat.

They had only set out that morning, and already she was done for the day; heaven knows what she would be like in another few days. Clementine still hadn't fully recovered, given blood loss wasn't something a person got over easy. Those couple of miles had already taken their toll, that just to be sitting there alone after all that activity still had Clementine feeling like she was on some slow-moving merry-go-round and would black out if it went much faster.

Clementine was struggling; she didn't want to admit it, but she really, really _was _struggling and doubted her own capabilities for it. Rest could wait a little longer though, along with all her troubled thoughts too. First things first...

Sitting upright, Clementine's eyes tracked the dashboard down to where the keys were in the ignition, the one she'd seen on the keychain with a bottle opener on it. She gave it a few turns, the dashboard switching off and relighting up with all different sorts of lights, but the truck wouldn't fire up, barely a splutter of noise coming from the engine.

"It's no good, it won't start."

She heard Luke let out a disgruntled sigh. "Figured as much...there uh, anythin' in there we can use?"

Looking out from the truck again, assured the weak sound of that engine hadn't attracted the attention of those distant walkers, Clementine moved on.

Except for some junk, there wasn't much on the side door compartments; the glove box was open, though again there was little to see, just some cigarettes, a lady's underwear magazine, and some white powdery stuff in a plastic bag…flour maybe? Clementine couldn't tell and really didn't want to taste it to check in case it was actually poison; just like those thin square-shaped packets; somehow Clementine didn't think those were candy, they didn't look right...

Staring shrewdly at that glove box a moment longer before reaching over to shut it, Clementine set her sights on that pile of dirty clothes on the passenger seat, peeling them away to reveal a dark shoulder bag hidden underneath. The bag was heavier than she expected, the strap slipping out from her hand after picking it up. It had to be a good thing though in it being heavy, because it meant something was inside, maybe guns or some other type of weapons.

"Any luck?" she heard Luke called from where he was outside going around to check the back of the pickup truck. Upon placing that heavy bag on her lap and opening it up to see its content, Clementine could gladly say it was indeed good news; they weren't weapons, but it was still good news.

She smiled. "I found some cans, food!"

A laugh sounded from her friend. "That's great. What's on the menu?"

Clementine picked out the first can from the top, turning it around to read the front label, and felt the smile on her face sink a little. "Brussel sprouts."

"Okay not bad, what else?" Luke asked, and Clementine checked another.

Her smile sunk even more. "More sprouts_._"

"Heh, variety in a can." She heard Luke say. The vehicle buckled unexpectedly giving Clementine a scare, until she saw her friend through the rear window, where he was checking through what little was dumped in the back of that pickup truck.

A full search of that shoulder bag contained three cans of food in total, an empty hip flask and two bottles of water that had frozen up a little from the cold. Better than what luck they'd had in the past, but it still was nowhere near as good as those chocolate bars Luke found back at the farmhouse.

Clementine really missed the chocolate.

"Um, Luke?"

"Yeah?"

She hesitated, staring at that open bag. "They're all sprouts."

"For real?"

"No," Clementine corrected herself with, upon noticing there was another can hidden beneath a stinky shirt inside the bag. The can was labelled differently from the others, yet she was soon left disappointed on discovering what it was. "There's a can of dog food too…"

The disappointment in Luke's voice was evident. "Damn. Well, better than nothin' I guess."

Putting the shoulder bag down on the passenger seat again, sleepily Clementine settled back from where she sat and sulked at the prospect of having to eat cans full of gross sprouts...and then doggy food too, _ugh_.

She pouted.

"I'd rather eat _nothing_."

"Trust me; you don't," Clementine heard Luke say and he was right. Food was food; that's the way they had to look at it. They couldn't really be picky; she'd gone through this scenario more than enough times to know that. Still it didn't change the fact Clementine was missing the good stuff, like the candy store she and her friends would go to, or the fancy cakes she and Mom would make; she really liked the chocolate ones too, especially those chocolate chip muffins...and…

Clementine grasped her clammy forehead, the temptation to sleep weighing on her eyelids that she willed herself to resist.

How much longer was it going to take until she started to feel like herself again?

"_Shit_," Luke quietly cursed out back, jumping down from the truck. He soon appeared by that open car door, leaning against the side of the truck where he was using some old cloth to clean the blood from that handgun he'd taken from the corpse. "There ain't nothin' worth takin' back there; the canisters are all bone dry. I did find a couple bullets on the guy, but there ain't much else," he paused, checking something near the steering wheel. "Yeah, looks like his truck burnt out; must've run down to its last mile and had some lurkers jump him thereafter. I don't reckon we'll be gettin' this old gal movin', not without more gas."

That was not the news Clementine wanted to hear. If they didn't need a car before, then they really needed one now. They still had a long way to go and with the cloudy skies above looking like they might unleash hell on them, Clementine didn't favor walking all the way in a snowstorm, not after before.

She leaned forward, mindful not to move too quickly as she unzipped the backpack by her feet to get some water. "This stinks."

"Heh, ditto to that," Luke said, while loading up that clip with the few bullets he'd found on the corpse, four in total. He halted briefly in loading the last one because of the strange look Clementine was giving him, and he elaborated. "It means 'the same.' "

"Oh," Clementine turned her head away to lift that half-drunk bottle out from her bag when she froze, noticing there was something sticking out from under the seat.

It was some folded paper. No wait, not paper. There were colored lines and writing printed on it, like those of a...

"What is it?" Luke asked, the answer given to him when Clementine pulled out that map, unfolding it carefully on her lap.

It was a map showing the whole of Ohio; a good thing for a person to have. They didn't need this map since they had their own. The man might've not had much useful stuff on him, but he still had the brains to be prepared with where he was going-

"Hey, hey look right there; you see that?" Luke pointed down at the map and Clementine noticed what her friend had first. Lines had been drawn in ink along the roads in felt-tip pen, where the stranger must've traveled. Some areas were crossed-out where he'd ended up taking different routes and going to different places. Where Luke had his finger pointed to however, was where they themselves were headed, and that was the really unnerving thing about it.

Wellington had been crossed out.

A horrible feeling of dread twisted in Clementine's gut. "He was going to Wellington too."

Handing over that gun to her in exchange for the map, Luke checked it over, not appearing all too thrilled.

"Yeah, looks like he got all the way there too; took a bunch of dead ends, but he got there," Luke lowered the map and looked over his shoulder, down the rest of the road they were yet to travel. "See Wellington's that way; unless he hit some ice and skidded the truck around, then he was goin' in the opposite direction, away from it..."

Clementine reached into her coat pocket for the small compass they used to keep track of where they were going. She held it in front of her, waiting for that needle to find its mark, yet just as when they'd checked it some ten or so minutes before it pointed to north in the same direction they were heading, the direction the pickup truck clearly had been driving away from on that long stretch of road.

This wasn't good; in fact this was the worst thing they could hear after coming all this way. Clementine hadn't staked her hopes dangerously high on Wellington being a wonderful place, but to uncover something like this was discouraging, like having the first sight of dry land swallowed up by the ocean after being lost at sea for what felt like a lifetime. It just didn't make any sense, why had this man turned around and left after going all that way? What had happened in Wellington that had him leave there? They just didn't know and wouldn't unless they went to Wellington themselves to find that out, though to do so, it might put them in even _more _danger if they weren't aware of what to expect.

Could it really be that everything they had heard was nothing but rumors after all? Was Wellington just a pipe dream?

A metal _thud _of something hitting the pickup truck had Clementine nearly jump out from her skin. Poking her head out from the open door, she saw it wasn't a walker, but Luke, leaned over the side of that truck with his head in his hands as he muttered out a curse or two under his breath. Clementine couldn't see his face; she didn't have to see it to know he wasn't taking this well.

If only they could've known all this when the others were still alive…

Staring down at that gun on her lap, reluctantly Clementine spoke. "What do we do now?"

"I dunno, I don't…I need to-" Luke never finished, he hadn't the chance to, as he was to hear something from far off the same time that Clementine did; it was a sound that had them both lifting their heads up and looking around confused.

An engine?

Turning around to kneel on that seat, Clementine peered through the rear window of that pickup truck. There she saw it some ways down the long road where the land dipped down into a small valley, _a car_. It was driving slow, maybe because of all the snow and ice that was still on many of the roads.

A minute at most and it would be here.

Before Clementine could say or do anything, Luke slammed the door of that truck shut with her still inside it, stepping away as he spoke out a direct order. "Get down low and stay hidden, and don't be comin' out until I say."

"Luke!?"

"Just do it, Clementine!"

The car no longer looked as small as it had just a second ago, the engine revving as the driver went to pick up some speed. They would have seen him by now, whoever it was behind the wheel, they would have spotted Luke by the truck; not her though, not from where she was, not just yet. Luke was trying to protect her, in case whoever it was wasn't friendly. But then, who was going to protect him if they weren't?

_'Please, no more bad guys, not now.'_

The clock was ticking away until that car would soon reach them, the growl of that engine getting louder as it drew closer, close enough she could see the chains on those tires and the faint outlines of people inside. Luke was already gone, walking away from the pickup truck to get enough distance from it so maybe the driver wouldn't think he was with anybody, like he was just some stranger all by himself. Yeah, as if anybody would buy that story for a second if they got him talking. Luke couldn't lie well enough to save his own life; as soon as the strangers were to ask if he was with anyone, the game would be up.

This plan would fail, just like it had with Christa and the men in those woods. They'd see right through him as easily as Clementine could.

_**'Cause I don't want to get in a fight, and you really think he'd shoot a little girl?'**_

Now hidden low out of sight as she heard that car approaching fast, Clementine looked down at the gun in her hand…and quickly tucked it into her coat pocket, before opening the truck door and hopping out.

Nobody else was dying for her, not today.

Legs like jello she hurried on, passing the half-devoured corpse and the female walker as she went to where Luke stood on the side of the road awaiting the car's arrival. The welcome he gave her upon realizing she'd disobeyed him wasn't a pleasant one.

"The hell you doin'!? Clem I said to stay in the truck!"

His anger did nothing to sway her decision, Clementine's feet remaining rooted where they were on the ground. "We stay together."

"Yeah, a real damn smart plan that is! Jesus Christ kid," Luke remarked, yet there was no more that could be argued on, because as of right now, they were no longer alone.

The car pulled up short of them, the driver inside killing the engine. Some seconds later, did those doors open and two people step out. One was a pale-faced woman, not young, but definitely not that old either; she was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and really pretty too, that Clementine could've imagined lots of girls jealous of her looks back when the lady was young enough to be in school. The other person with her, the driver, was a man; he seemed be a little older than the woman and looked really tough too like he could've been a boxer, with one of those sharp masculine-type faces on him, his dark hair hidden beneath an old red baseball cap more worse for wear than Clementine's.

Both the man and the woman were dressed well for the winter, with no visible weapons on them that Clementine could see. As intimidating as that man appeared, something in his smile came off as friendly, enough for Clementine to notice he wasn't behaving the least bit hostilely nor overly suspiciously towards her or Luke as she might've expected someone of his build to; the pretty lady was the same. Still, Clementine had enough experience to not go trusting strangers straight away, no matter how nice or friendly they might appear.

It was the man who approached first, his grey eyes studying the pair watchfully from head to toe as if he too were checking them over for any weapons. He focused on Clementine and her stump the longest, much longer than she was comfortable with, so much so that she shot him a glare, not liking the attention; that soon got him to stop.

"Been a while since I've seen folks like yourselves," the man said finally, that soft-spoken voice not quite matching someone of his physique, as he'd diverted all attention onto Luke. "What brings you around these parts? Can't be for the weather, can it? Not with the young'un on your hands."

Luke remained cautious of the stranger, taking a step closer to Clementine, as if he were ready for anything. "Nowhere in particular really, just tryin' to find someplace decent to get by is all."

The man laughed, sharing a look with the blonde-haired woman who spared him a warm smile. "Ah, like we haven't heard that before. Yup, sounds about the same as every other traveler we've met on their way up to Wellington; that where you two are goin'? No secret to us if it is."

The thought of that corpse and that map with "Wellington" crossed-out on it flashed in Clementine's mind and revived her doubts on whether she and Luke would still go there now. Yet if one thing did spark a tiny ray of hope, then it was that mention from the man having met others going to Wellington too.

_'What, what if they…'_

Clementine spoke up before Luke could give an answer. "Have you been there?"

The man looked at her strangely, as if surprised that she'd spoken. "Well, sure have sweetheart; me and my gal went there a near month back. But they don't just let anybody in; a very _selective_ community you could call them, or a bunch of purest fucks is more about right. Excuse the language."

"_'Selective?' _Whaddya mean by that?" Luke asked him warily.

"As in if you don't tick all the boxes, you don't get let in, that's what; just like what they went and did to us. Came all the way up from Houston and they threw us out on our asses; didn't care if we starved or what happened to us and all because we went killin' and stealin' from what weren't the biters, whether we had any choices in the matter or not," The man told them, as if still harboring a great grudge about it all, yet his expression was soon to soften and sympathize with them again. "Look, I apologize, I don't mean to be puttin' a wrench in your _vacation plans _with all this ranting. You're still welcome to try your luck there and everything. I mean who knows maybe it'll turn out good for you both; I hear they take pity on families, especially with young kids."

On cue, both Clementine and Luke were to look at each other a little confounded and not just over the news of Wellington. The two didn't look anything alike to resemble family; surely the man noticed that, right? And a community that kicked people out for killing or stealing in the past? The extremities sounded like the alter ego of Carver's camp, but who hadn't done something bad by this point? It was nearly impossible for somebody not to have stolen or killed others that weren't walkers when in an apocalypse; her old group stole from the station wagon and Lee had killed others beside walkers, and so had Luke done the same when he saved her from Carver who'd nearly broken her neck. When people were pushed and had no choice, they were capable of taking a life or stealing if it meant they could live for an extra day.

Even Clementine, she had killed, she had stolen...

"Dammit, me and my manners. The name's Joe by the way, Joe Brook; I was a truck driver back in the day. And this is Martha, my partner," the man, _Joe_, introduced themselves as, while the blonde-haired lady, _Martha_, took the opportunity to come closer with a shy wave, yet still hanging back from properly joining them. "I don't believe we got your names."

"Uh, it's Luke."

"…Clementine."

"Luke and Clementine, well nice to meet you both," Joe said, before looking past them to the dead walker and the fresh corpse near the pickup truck, "Hope that weren't no friend of yours. You two by yourselves?"

"He wasn't, and uh yeah, yeah; it's just us," Luke answered truthfully, yet not telling Joe any more than he needed to know, or how they came to be here on their own. Her friend still had his guard up about these strangers, just as much as Clementine did. It'd been so long since they'd met others that hadn't tried to kill them first, that she felt edgy being around friendly people again. Clementine understood now why Christa had been so unwilling to find another group after Omid and the baby died. That time alone cut off from others made anybody cautious, that's how she'd felt about Luke and the others the first time meeting them all.

Even so, with that cautiousness weighing in on their first impressions of these new people, there was still something bugging Clementine about what Joe had said. "Why did they turn you away?"

"Say what?"

Clementine studied the man's reaction through narrowed eyes. "You said they turned people away for killing; who did _you _kill?"

"Haha, listen to that, an astute one isn't she? Betcha don't let anything get by ya, do you little lady? And well, I can't say they were real _people_, not the best is what I'm tryin' to say," Joe went quiet as he scratched the side of his neck, looking grave. "Couple of guys from some gangs; one asshole that tried to hurt my gal; nobody special worth mentioning. We've…I guess, we've just done what we've had to in order to survive; nothin' we're all that proud of but there you go, they're things we can't undo."

There was honesty there, that Clementine picked up on. Joe could've just lied if he wanted to hide the truth, but he hadn't, she could tell. And he wasn't lying about Wellington either, at least, she thought he wasn't…

"So there's really people there then, huh? How many?" Luke asked forwardly, crossing his arms.

"Enough to fill a small town," the woman Martha spoke, the first words she'd said since meeting the pair. Clementine noticed she had a bit of an accent on her, was it French? "They've got electricity, running water, food, everything you might expect. A really good place to be raising a little girl from what we saw of it too."

Clementine caught Joe staring at her again, before those eyes quickly darted back to Luke. "Look, we're planning to head out of state and we're low on gas as it is, but if you want, we can drive you some of the way there or to some shelter? Maybe pitch in a good word for us when you get there? Gonna be havin' some bad weather comin' soon. You don't want to be gettin' yourself or the little lady caught in it."

"We have a bit of food we can spare you both too; having some company around for a while would be nice," Martha offered with a tender smile, taking a small step closer. "What do you say?"

A trip for some of the way to Wellington, now that was something Clementine could _really _do with, a real godsend. And free food too that wasn't sprouts or disgusting dog food? If she was still the eight-year-old girl she was when all this started, she would've looked up at Luke and begged him for them to go with the couple...yet, something just didn't feel quite right, and Clementine was sure it wasn't her just being paranoid. The couple seemed really nice, but all she could keep thinking of when she looked at their charming and over friendly faces, were of the St. Johns and how her old group had naively been persuaded into going to their dairy, to where terrible things had happened.

Luke might not have been there at that dairy, but he had gone through something similar with Carver's camp that'd slowly turned into nothing but a prison full of bad people. Clementine could see it there and then on her older friend's face, that Luke wasn't convinced by these two strangers, not in the slightest.

As such, when Luke spoke out, he made it pretty clear where he stood on the couple's offer.

"Thanks, but we'll be fine; ain't nothin' we can't deal with."

The rejection caused Joe to look over at his partner, whose smile had faded a little. "You sure about that? I mean we really don't mind goin' out of our way to-"

In the very instant the man took those steps forward, Luke immediately backed off, moving Clementine along with him as that protective arm went out in front of her. "I said we're fine!"

Luke's words cut sharp, giving warning for Joe not to come any closer; the man listened, stopping right in his tracks as his hands came up in defense of his actions. "Now _whoa_, no need to be jumpy; we don't mean any harm, we just want to help. Just thinkin' of your girl's best interests here."

Joe was lying, Clementine spotted it clearer now at the pressure the stranger was being put under, even Martha suddenly looked more nervous than she had a right to be. Liars, _they were both liars!_

Realizing this, Clementine's hand slowly inched towards her coat pocket, to where the gun remained safely hidden away…when she caught movement beyond the two strangers, in the car. One of the back door windows, it had been sneakily rolled down during the four's talking, and she could see somebody inside, another person, a man with dark skin.

He had a gun!

"Luke!"

Clementine didn't have time to even think, she just turned and pushed her friend as hard as she could with her arm to shove him out of the way. It didn't do much good, given Luke was much taller and heavier than she was, and as a result Clementine was only able to knock him off balance by a couple steps before a shot was fired.

Her friend was to slip on some snow from there, going down on his side as he hit the ground. Blood dripped onto the tarmac where Luke had fallen, the red liquid running down his jaw from the fresh wound on the side of his ear the bullet had clipped the very edge of, just missing his skull.

The armed man hadn't been shooting to disarm.

They were in trouble.

"Go! Clem RUN!" Luke had yelled upon realizing what'd happened, that he was bleeding. But Clementine knew what he asked was an impossible thing for her to do. There was nowhere to run or hide, and she wasn't well enough to go far. After what happened to Christa and the friend that fleeing cost her before...

No, not again!

Refusing to turn on her heels and run, Clementine frantically reached into her pocket, preparing to pull the gun on these strangers before another shot could be fired. The weapon though, it was caught on the insides of her small coat pocket and she couldn't get it free in time before those arms suddenly wrapped around her from behind, stopping Clementine as she was lifted unwillingly off her feet.

It was the woman, Martha.

"Get her in the car! I'll deal with this!" Joe yelled, after having violently kicked Luke in the face, knocking him back down as he'd been attempting to get up and go help her.

Luke didn't even get the chance to defend himself as he was struck again, this time with Joe's fist.

"Let me go! LET GO!" Clementine screamed while she struggled like crazy, kicking at the woman who was much stronger than she physically looked. Despite all her attempts to wrestle herself free, Martha was still succeeding little by little in carrying her towards that car. As they got closer to it, the lanky dark-skinned man who had taken a shot at Luke got out, leaving the door open as he strolled by them; in his hands he had that gun, a disturbing smile of satisfaction present on his face, yet it wasn't Clementine that he had any interest in harming.

Her blood ran ice-cold at seeing the gunman walking straight on over to where Luke was knocked of his senses on the ground, just as Joe was reaching for the machete strapped to her friend's back by his rucksack, pulling the blade out…

Clementine lost it completely, struggling with the woman even harder and with everything she had in her like some feral cat wanting out of its cage. She clawed at her coat pocket again, trying to reach inside for her gun, but Martha's tight bear hug had both Clementine's arms locked in at her sides. She couldn't get to it!

The more Clementine resisted however, the more the restraint the woman had on her began to loosen, moreso when trying to bundle Clementine into the back of that car; the girl's struggles intensifying even more to makes sure she didn't get pushed inside. But it wasn't enough! Clementine still wasn't able to break free.

"Luke! _**LUKE!**_"

Martha cursed something angrily in French, unable to force her into the vehicle, for Clementine had stuck both her legs out, one foot wedged on the side of the headrest for the front seat, with the other on the outside of the car, refusing to budge. Nobody was snatching her away again, Clementine wouldn't have it! Not ever! Not after what happened to Lee and being a prisoner to that madman; she'd rather die first than lose another friend and let that happen again!

She had to stop this!

"Davis get over here! This _chienne_ is getting on my nerves!" Martha shouted having to fight to keep Clementine at bay, as it soon got the dark-skinned man's, _Davis's_, attention. Joe was swift to shoo him off, too busy toying with the barely conscious Luke he had at his mercy, striking another fist down on the back of her friend's skull. And yet, even when knocked back down, Clementine could see Luke slowly crawling onto his hands and knees again, refusing to give in.

But Joe, he just acted indifferent to it all.

"Still tryin' to get yourself up huh? Gotta hand it to ya, you got some balls that's for sure; now I see where she gets it from. But don't you go worryin' about the little lady anymore; we'll be takin' real good care of her. You understand don't you? Gotta do what we have to, to survive, sooo, we can't exactly have you runnin' around to go ruin our little setup, now can we?"

Clementine heard Luke take another beating as Davis' hands latched onto her ankles, wrenching her feet free and leaving nothing to stop Clementine from being thrown into the back of the car by the two adults. Clambering up onto one elbow, Clementine caught it then through that foggy windscreen, the sight of Joe pulling back Luke's head by his hair as he yanked her half-conscious friend up onto his knees, readying the machete with a cynical remark that made the anger bubble within Clementine's chest like hot acid.

"Sorry you have to go losin' your head over this, but better you be painted as the monster than me; no hard feelin's though, right my man?"

_**'Do I look like a monster to you?'**_

Do I look like a monster...Clementine heard the stranger ask that to Lee, when she'd been leaning her ear to the bathroom door of the motel room. The stranger had been planning to kill him and keep her as family, and it was then she'd known she had to do something, to find a way to break out and save Lee somehow before it happened. Monsters, just like the stranger, like the St. Johns, like Carver and Nate…

They were all the same, _every last one of them!_

Her erratic heart pounded fast, charged with so much adrenaline Clementine was physically shaking. The blonde-haired woman, Martha, was already climbing into the car, preparing to restrain Clementine once again, but by then the gun had been tugged free from her coat, the barrel being jammed into the advancing woman's shoulder, and she fired.

The recoil jolted Clementine's arm, but it was nothing compared to what it did to Martha; the impact of the bullet tore through the woman's body, knocking her back as she went tumbling out from the car, screaming and clutching her shoulder to pulse out blood from between her fingers.

"The fuck!?" shouted Davis, standing near his fallen friend as he jumped away in surprise. He quickly went to bring his own weapon up at seeing she was armed, to shoot Clementine dead before she could shoot him. Yet her arm was already raised, a stumpy limb used to stabilize the gun as she fired again, three more times. One bullet hit Davis' left elbow, the other two being fatal gut shots that had him going down and staying there as he dropped his handgun, groaning in agony.

Four bullets, that's all Clementine could remember Luke loading in; she was out of ammo!

The gun, _she needed that gun!_

With nothing else to lose but her life, Clementine threw herself forward and fled from the car, avoiding Martha on the ground who tried to swipe her legs with that no-longer-concealed knife of hers. Davis was lying not far from her, an injured arm cradled to his ruptured gut, but his other hand was reaching out, fingers inching closer towards the gun next to him.

_'No!'_

Clementine brought her foot down on his hand, the man crying out as she scooped up the weapon and got clear of the two strangers before either could do a thing about it. From there, trembling all over, Clementine rushed up to raise that handgun and pointed it straight at Joe who had been just seconds from hurting her with that machete; the blade frozen in mid-swing.

He backed off the moment that gun was on him, holding his hands up in immediate surrender, yet he didn't drop the machete.

"Okay, just take it easy now darlin'-"

"Shut up!" Clementine yelled, her breaths raspy from her struggles and her limbs feeling weak as if she might pass out at any second. But she wouldn't let exhaustion stop her lowering that gun, nothing would!

Luke was lying face down in the road. His ear had stopped bleeding, but he wasn't moving, not a single muscle. She couldn't see a drop of blood on the machete. Joe hadn't slit his throat or cut the head from his shoulders; he meant to though, he'd intended to kill Luke! They still might!

"Look, Clementine right? You win, alright you win!" Joe said flustered, almost seeming unnatural to his earlier tough guy attitude as he started to break out in a sweat. His eyes kept flicking over to his injured partner and friend, appearing more concerned about them than taking Clementine out; even to show it, Joe finally dropped the machete down at his feet, kicking it away in her direction. "See? You beat us! So you just, n-now you just be lettin' us go and we'll be on our way, okay!? There won't be no more trouble, we'll drive off and that'll be the end of it; we'll leave you both the hell alone, alright kid!?"

There was something Clementine remembered Carlos once saying, that aside from _lurkers _and people being guilty of cold-blooded murder and other immoral acts, nothing unnerved him more than a child holding a gun. 'Unpredictable and dangerous.' Clementine once took that as an insult from the doctor, not trusting her to use a weapon like the other grown-ups. Only now did Clementine understand that fear was not Carlos' alone.

Joe was afraid, afraid of the unpredictability Carlos was so judgmental of her for. And after having gunned down both his friends, Joe knew he could be one wrong move from getting his brains blown out like he deserved.

Clementine wanted to do it, to kill him for nearly taking away her friend, and _her_. It would be really easy too, so easy just to pull the trigger and shoot all three of them so they could never hurt anybody else again. With them gone, she and Luke could take their car and get to Wellington in no time. All she'd have to do was shoot and it would happen, she could make it happen! But her finger just remained wavering on the trigger of that gun, refusing to fire. Clementine really wanted to, so much she couldn't even say, but she couldn't bring it into action and carry out the deed. Because for the first time ever, she was the one in control, and for as long as she was, they couldn't do _anything_…

Clementine had the choice, not them.

She sighted movement on her left. It was Martha, crawling over to Davis who was lying on his back battling for breath, stuttering out words of mercy to his friend that he didn't want to die. He was in a bad way, Clementine could tell that long before the woman undid his coat, and she saw the man's shirts beneath drenched in a red stain that was quickly growing.

The desperation in Martha's face as she darted a look over at Joe held at gunpoint, it wasn't fake, nor was the pleading in her partner's eyes that he returned back to her.

"J-Joe!?"

_**'You've killed lots of things now; it didn't even matter.'**_

_**'Killing is bad, no matter what.'**_

_**'But you do it now to protect yourself, and to protect me.'**_

_**'It doesn't make it good.'**_

"Please kid," Joe asked of her, nearly begging with his hands still both raised…as one small step at a time, Clementine shakily watched him move, not to make a grab for the machete or to go for her or Luke, but to edge slowly over to where his two companions laid hurt and suffering. And as he did, Clementine ended up sidestepping slowly in the opposite direction to where Luke was still unconscious, not once looking away from Joe or lowering the gun.

Clementine kept the weapon trained on the man as he'd gone to go join Martha and Davis, and there she still stood on her guard as Joe had gotten Davis into the car, his blonde-haired partner seating herself next to him to maybe treat his injuries along with her own. But in that single moment of pause before Joe got behind the wheel to drive them to the safety, he turned his head and looked over at Clementine from where she was.

Joe never said a word again; all he did, was give her one long nasty look as if he wouldn't forget this, he wouldn't forget _her_…

They left as Joe had sworn to, driving off down the road and not once stopping. Only when they were far enough away, and didn't look as though they would be coming back to finish them off any time soon, did Clementine crumble down onto her knees and drop the handgun; shaken up and scared, but not dead, not taken.

Too close, way too close.

Catching her breath, Clementine pushed herself up again, gun once again in hand as she was quick to go to her older friend's side. She dropped to her knees, gently shaking him by his shoulder.

"Luke? _Luke...?_"

He wouldn't wake up, not even a flicker of the eyelids. But she could just see it, those faint vapor clouds appearing with each breath coming into contact with that cold air. Clementine even leaned down to have a listen with one ear to be sure she wasn't just imagining things, but she could hear it for sure, hear him breathing.

Luke was still alive; he'd make it, _hopefully_.

"You idiot," Clementine found herself saying, but just grateful that she could. If it wasn't for him already taking a beating and being out cold, she'd have hit him herself.

A distant groan from the fields got her attention, soon hearing many more of them to follow it. _Walkers_, the lost ones that weren't so lost anymore; they'd been brought over by the gunshots, the cold having them moving at a snail's pace towards the road, yet it wouldn't take them long to get here.

Clementine glanced back down at the still unresponsive Luke, not showing any signs of coming to any time soon, and then at the gun she'd taken off Davis. Quickly she removed the clip, dropping it on her lap to check the bullets.

Not enough, not for how many walkers were out there.

"Crap."

About to shake Luke's shoulder again, Clementine stopped herself in the midst of doing so at spotting the female walker her friend had downed earlier next to that corpse. Then, an idea sprung to mind, one to have saved Clementine's life before, thanks to Lee...

Standing up, Clementine went to retrieve Luke's machete from the ground, gingerly making her way to that female walker to get to work.

This was going to get messy.

* * *

If there was anything Clementine missed about Sarah, it was the games they used to play.

It'd been years having since hung out with someone her own age; Clementine hadn't, not after Duck had passed away. She had almost forgotten what it was really like to be a kid again, because childhood was something she'd tried to let go of, believing that growing up faster would help her become stronger at enduring the worst. Meeting Sarah however, it'd caused Clementine to realize how much of her old self she'd really left behind, but how dangerously sheltered that fifteen-year-old was, and no thanks to her overprotective dad who didn't want to lose Sarah like he had his wife.

To shield his daughter from every little harmful thing, Carlos had done so out of love, yet that doctor with all the brainy medical skills he'd possessed had failed to see that he was doing Sarah more harm than good, causing the girl to have many phobias as a result of all that protecting, _lots_. Sarah would get anxious over the slightest mishap or whenever her dad went too far away from her. She also had a strong dislike of bugs, having hated the things so much that Sarah would freak out if even a fly so much as buzzed near her, or she found an ant crawling on her clothes.

When the sun went down, Sarah became more of a nightmare, because as it'd turned out, she was also as afraid of the dark just as much as she'd been of walkers and other animals out there in the wilderness. Granted, Clementine never liked sleeping out in the woods and still hated spiders too, but Sarah was a timid rabbit in comparison to her; the poor girl had been too terrified to sleep a lot of the time those weeks after leaving the cabin from the threat of Carver and his men. It was probably because of this, that both Clementine and Sarah had rested with their sleeping bags next to each other on doctor's orders, and for what inevitably caused Clementine to be kept awake because of that teenager's fears, far more than her own.

"Did you hear that?"

"Clem, I think there's a bug in my hair."

"D-did something just move over there?"

"I really, _really _think there's a bug in my hair, Clem!"

"Are you sure you didn't see anything!?"

How Clementine envied Carlos for being such a heavy sleeper, leaving her to have to deal with Sarah's phobias for the most part. It'd driven Clementine nuts, and was perhaps why their friendship was a rocky road she just put up with walking on in the beginning. They wouldn't have even been calling each other "_best friends" _in the first place if she hadn't agreed to the pinky swear, something Clementine had only done out of fear that Sarah might've told on her for sneaking about the cabin to steal supplies right under everybody's noses.

There were a lot of sleepless nights that Clementine regretted making that oath; if it weren't for Carlos being there, she would've been straight-out honest with Sarah and told her to zip it, or have slept the furthest away from her so she could get some shuteye. Sadly Clementine couldn't and by the third night with shadows thickening under both girls' eyes, Clementine resorted to braiding Sarah's hair at night and even lending over her baseball cap so the teenager would stop complaining about the creepy crawlies.

Thankfully, it was those guessing games Clementine had Sarah join in which were the key to keeping her anxious mind distracted, and tiring her out so she'd drift off to sleep faster, a task that'd taken lots of time and effort. Yet unbeknownst to Clementine, it was the starting point of changing around what she thought of that sheltered teenager.

"I swim in the water, and I'm really smart; what am I?"

"Um…a…a fish?"

After having received so many other obvious answers prior to that, Clementine had struggled to keep the annoyance from her voice. "Not really; it's a...mammal."

The young teenager hummed while she thought away, her soft brown eyes squinting up at those twinkling stars without the aid of her red glasses as she held the sleeping bag up to her chin so no bugs could get in.

"I swim in the water, and I'm really smart," Sarah repeated slower, and then like fireworks those innocent eyes had lit up. "Wait, a dolphin!"

"Shh!"

A grumble stirred here and there from the sleeping forms gathered around the low flames of that small campfire, and a dozy Nick sitting on a log on guard duty had been promptly woken by that bubbly voice. The young man was quick to play it cool as he'd glanced around the camp, making sure nobody had seen him snoozing on the job, yet some minutes later he'd soon drifted off, _again_, and for what was not the first time that night, Clementine had reminded herself to find a big enough rock to wake him up after she was done trying to send Sarah off to sleep...

"Okay, my turn!" Sarah had whispered all giddy after they were done pretending to be sleeping for the no longer awake Nick, at least Sarah had anyway. "I'm fluffy and I purr, and I like milk too."

To even pretend that Clementine was pausing to figure it out was a hurdle too high for her thoughts to jump.

"A cat?"

"Yes! That's exactly it!" Sarah had praised, still not the least bit sleepy. "Your turn, Clem!"

"Um…" with a yawn Clementine had done her best to focus and give the next animal mystery to be solved, her eyes failing to stay open. "My legs and neck are the same length, and I stand really tall."

"My legs are…neck? Oh! A GIRAFFE!"

At that ecstatically spoken word, Nick's finger must've accidently squeezed on the rifle's trigger, because seconds after there'd been one hell of a BANG that startled the young man awake along with everybody else by the sound of that bullet being fired up into the night sky; even Clementine and Sarah had sat up in a flash because of it, hearts jumping in their chests in alarm.

As quickly as it took everybody to realize Nick hadn't been shooting at walkers, it wasn't a surprise that all the adults in the group were left none too happy about their rude awakening.

"Jesus Christ Nick!"

"Are you out of your fuckin' mind!?"

"Crazy motherfucker, you'll bring the lurkers right down on us!"

"I wasn't-I thought I saw something!"

"Oh sure you did. I swear if it weren't for this baby I'd give you a piece of my mind!"

"I ain't no liar! I'm telling you the truth! Luke, back me up here!"

It'd been Clementine's fault, more than Sarah's. She'd started the whole thing with the guessing games in the first place. Yet as the group argued at Nick's incompetence and agreed for Alvin to take over standing watch, Clementine couldn't speak up. The arguing, it all became background noise when she'd noticed Sarah beside her looking absolutely petrified, trembling like crazy as if she might die of fright at any given second.

Sarah, she had been just like that a near month later when Carver's camp was alit all around them, his followers fleeing from the buildings on fire, with many being eaten alive by the walkers the flames attracted. The sight of it all had glued Sarah to the spot, that if it weren't for her dad urging her to run and both he and Clementine pulling the teenager along, she might've been burned or been eaten alive along with them.

The insecurities of that girl had frightened Clementine, at how vulnerable she really was when push came to shove. She wasn't strong-willed, and couldn't handle any form of disappointment, and the tiniest bit of danger had her panicking. Sarah was all the innocence this world hadn't corrupted or destroyed yet, but it would, and it had. Yet back then, Clementine just couldn't tell the group the truth and get her in trouble. It was why rather than admit it was them to save Nick from an earful, Clementine had gently rested a hand on Sarah's shoulder and told her to get some rest; that time, the teen listened without much fuss, although before they'd drifted off, Clementine was sure she'd heard Sarah whisper out a tiny sorry to her.

They had still played their infamous guessing games after that incident, but with a lot less enthusiasm on Sarah's part. The subject changed to other categories over those weeks when they ran out of animals to guess, switching to things like film actors or singers and so on. The pair also got into playing I spy when there weren't just trees to look at, and some Truth or dare too; well, actually it wasn't really Truth or dare because Sarah didn't like the "dare" part very much, so it was more like "Truth or truth" or "Truth or lie" as it evolved into, where for the lie part, they'd exaggerate tales like "I was an astronaut," or "I slayed dragons in a past life" something that both had gotten really carried away with. Over time Clementine ended up not minding playing those games with Sarah, but enjoyed them, despite how sleep-deprived she was. Clementine never thought she'd feel this way, but she missed it...mostly because, it was from those games the two girls played that Clementine began to really care and like Sarah as a _real _friend, than out of courtesy of being nice to a girl who wasn't emotionally strong as her kind heart was.

One good thing about being at the ski lodge though, was that Clementine hadn't needed to worry about Sarah disturbing her too much once they were indoors and out of both a bug-free and walker-free environment. The only downside to the upside was that other much bigger problems were to put Clementine at unrest.

After the bridge incident and learning of Matthew's identity, she'd worried greatly for Nick and the mistakes he'd made that Walter wanted to plunge a knife in his chest for. The ex-school teacher might very well have gone through with it too, if she weren't there for her friend outside that ski lodge that night, ready to put herself between the two men and protect Nick from harm if she had to.

"I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Walter."

But Walter wasn't to do anything; he had just put Matthew's knife away, stubbed out that cigarette, and gone back inside without a word.

When Luke found out, they'd agreed not to bring the incident up with the others and that they would all leave first thing in the morning to avoid causing any further trouble. Yet after that talk, Clementine had been afraid to close her eyes, spending most of the night awake listening for any sound on those stairs, in case Walter came up to get revenge over his dead partner, a fear that plagued into what few dreams Clementine had that night—dreams of the grieving man standing over Nick's body with bloody knife in hand; Clementine was certain that for a while too, Nick and Luke couldn't sleep for the same reasons.

But there was something she had failed to mention before bed about their plans to leave the ski lodge, and that too, left Clementine more restless the longer her mind was to dwell on it that night. Because if they were to go, then it would've meant leaving behind her old friend that she'd been so glad to see again after all that time.

Kenny, he had been furious after learning of Matthew's death from Walter that morning to come; so angry Kenny was, he'd stormed straight up those stairs to where their group was still sleeping, soon waking them all up as he'd forced Nick up by his shirt and threatened to throw him over the banister, yelling and cursing every vile thing he could think of at Nick who'd begged for Kenny not to kill him. It was only thanks to Sarita and some brute force from Luke and Carlos separating the two in order to rescue their friend, that Kenny had finally laid off.

The old fisherman had ordered them out, told the group to get their butts out the door and leave the ski lodge. As confused and begrudged as most their group was at the revelations they hadn't known a thing of until that morning, they had all still reluctantly listened and gotten their things ready.

They might've separated then, and let that be that, but when they were at the door, the very moment that Kenny had seen Nick give Clementine her backpack, well…

"The hell you think you're doin'!?"

"Wha, uh…"

"Don't _what _me boy! You really think I'm lettin' you take that girl away with your lot after what you did to Matthew? Like hell if I have any fuckin' say in it!" Kenny yelled, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder at Sarita and at the very sullen-looking Walter, who'd stood at a distance from the group, not contributing a word. "She's stayin', _with us!_"

"Says who?" Luke had asked like an accusation. "She ain't nobody's property alright, she can make up her own mind!"

"Yeah and she'll tell ya she's stayin'; that right Clem? You don't want to go with these turd brain fugitives do you?"

It was a painful thing, having to hear Kenny talk about her new-found friends like that, and for it all to come from somebody she cared about too…

Clementine couldn't put into words how happy she was that Kenny was there with her again; nothing could express that after believing for so long that he'd died in Savannah like Christa and Omid said he had. But when Kenny had addressed her then, so full of confidence that she would say 'yes' and give him all the more valid reason to kick the group out, Clementine was left tongue-tied. Because even though she was reluctant to say goodbye to them, she'd realized that she didn't know what she wanted, if to stay or to go.

Her parents were dead, Lee was gone, and so were Christa and Omid too. She had been so used to following others, that to be put on the spot there and then over such an important decision on which group to stick with, she simply couldn't do it. Clementine hated goodbyes and in a world without phones or being able to send letters to people, and where the dead and living took away lives every single day, there was always the possibility that she might not see one or the other of her friends again.

If the past was anything to go on, that couldn't be more true.

"I…I don't know…"

The hurt on Kenny's face had been the worst. "What, Clem…"

Before the man was able to say anymore, Sarita had lightly touched his arm. "Kenny, please; don't pressurize her, she's just a child."

"Sarita-"

"I'm just as upset about Matthew as you are, but this isn't helping, not anyone," the woman had said with reason, her voice almost soothing. "Please honey, they have a pregnant woman with them. At least allow them some food first before sending them on their way; we can discuss after that on what to do then and what she wants. It should be her decision-"

"No, _NO! _There ain't nothin' to be discussin'! You hear me!?" Kenny retaliated having wrenched his arm free. "I'm tellin' ya they just got her all confused, just like the fucker on the radio did back in Savannah!"

Just at the mention of the stranger to have taken her hostage years before, Clementine's hands had tightened knuckle-white on the backpack held in her arms, her lungs holding onto the air trapped within them.

" 'The radio'? The hell's he talking about?" she'd distantly heard Alvin ask, not quite understanding what Kenny meant, for she hadn't told them everything with what'd happened to her old group. All they knew was that her parents were dead, and a little about Lee and the others who had died too. Only Luke was vaguely aware about it, and only he would ever learn the full story and all its details much later on, because he was the only one besides her in that room that would ever live long enough to hear it all.

"Oh don't play innocent with me. You're probably in cahoots with him too, the whole lot of ya!" Kenny shouted accusingly, having looked ready to get violent all over again like he had with Nick. "For all we know you're all just a bunch of fuckin' sickos that like to-"

"STOP IT! That's enough!"

Even before all this, years ago when Mom and Dad argued when they were alive, Clementine had hated fights and had never enjoyed hearing them. It'd felt like it then too, having to hear the grown-ups not getting along, and there being nothing she could say to make them stop. It'd reminded her too much of that run-down Motor Inn too, having to hear the fighting that went on between Kenny and Lilly, while Lee was always the one in the middle trying to keep the peace…and it never worked. It'd happened before, arguments that divided their group and the last time it did, somebody died for it.

Clementine didn't want that to happen again, for another life to be taken. So when silence fell in that ski lodge and all eyes were on her, Clementine knew she had to say more before anybody else got hurt.

"Nick…Nick's not a bad guy; he was just trying to help us, Kenny! He thought we were in trouble! He didn't mean it, and he's sorry, he really is!"

"Clemen-"

"Everybody makes mistakes! They do! But it doesn't make them a bad person for it. Bad stuff just happens, a-and you just…you just..." having gripped her backpack tighter and avoiding any eye contact with the ex-teacher and his saddening gaze, she'd continued. "So don't hate him, and _don't _take it out on my friends! If it were Katjaa and Duck on that bridge, you've would've done the same! You would've, Kenny!"

It'd been too much. Clementine had gone too far by mentioning their names. But it was too late to take any of it back, the damage already done as it'd cut through her friend's chest like a knife, and reopened the old wounds that'd never truly healed…

She had seen what had happened before with Ben, how Kenny had wanted to tear him limb from limb for the actions that had indirectly caused Katjaa's and Duck's deaths. Clementine overheard him argue with Lee too when they were back at the house after Crawford, ridiculing the man for not letting Ben fall. Kenny had been hurting then, and she could relate to that more than the next person, but to wish somebody dead who wasn't bad or mean at heart, where was the humanity in that?

Even now after all those to have died by her own hand, Clementine couldn't take any satisfaction from it. She hated death.

Kenny, he hadn't said a word in return to that, leaving the group feeling like they were treading on eggshells until Walter was to speak up at long last, saying that he would go and prepare some food for everybody; it was more of an excuse to break up the drama than to cook anything up, because all they ate were cold peaches for their breakfast that morning. Clementine was just glad the ex-teacher had squeezed in the suggestion quickly, before Kenny or anybody said something else they regretted.

The tension between the two groups didn't go away, even though few words were exchanged during that breakfast. Luke and the others made it clear that it was her decision on what she wanted to do, despite not appearing all too approving of leaving her with somebody like Kenny that they'd all known for little less than a day, and who had almost killed Nick.

Kenny was a different story; in a calmer frame of mind than before and the hurt on his face ever present that had left Clementine lacking the stomach for any more peaches, too wracked with guilt for bringing up his family on bad terms. He'd seemed to have forgiven her about it, yet had still been very against Clementine leaving with that group, all of whom he'd continued to watch just as suspiciously as they had him from their table.

"All I'm sayin' is you should be with people you can trust Clementine, and we don't know shit about these folks. They could be lying convicts that'll kill us all the first chance they get; hell they got this _Carver _guy after them, what more proof do you need? You understand, don't you Clem? Just say the word and they're gone; we'll kick'em out and be headin' on our way to Wellington by the week's end."

Those words were what Kenny had tried to persuade her with when Clementine had gone over to check on him, something that was difficult to listen to. The old fisherman so wanted her to say yes, he really did, but what Kenny was too blind to see was that Clementine didn't want to leave anybody; she wanted everyone to stay together. Maybe he thought he knew what was best for her, that keeping her safe and away from those that were being hunted by a dangerous man was for the best too, especially after what Nick had accidently gone and done to Matthew.

It was her decision, yet Clementine hadn't an answer she could give him. She couldn't figure out how to put it into words for Kenny to listen or understand...and, it was the same for everybody else too. It all got so stressful, having to decide and with so little time to make up her mind. So much so, that when breakfast was over and Sarita went to speak with Kenny alone in private, Clementine quietly slipped away into the girls' bathroom and locked herself in one of the cubicles, where she had just sat on the toilet seat, feeling like she wanted to burrow herself into the ground, and never come out.

A real surprise it was however, that when Clementine was at her lowest in that moment and worried for the worst to come, she was to find support in the last person she expected to come walking into that restroom and find her brooding alone with her thoughts.

"Clem?" A tiny knock at that cubicle door was so light it could have come from something as small as a mouse. Sarah's shy face had appeared in the crack of that door, almost cautious as if worried Clementine was using the toilet for its purpose, yet the teen had soon relaxed when she'd seen that she wasn't. "Are you okay?"

Clementine hadn't really wanted to say yes or no, as it was obvious what Sarah was talking about which had Clementine not her usual self. So, she had just shaken her head instead, staring at her shoes and those remarkably spotless tiles that were as clean as the rest of the ski lodge thanks to its current occupants.

With a sorrowful look, Sarah seemed like she wasn't sure where to go from there as both girls went quiet like two kids in a school play that'd forgotten their lines.

And then...

"Can I tell you a secret?"

Waiting for Clementine to give her approval, it was only then Sarah pulled something out from her cardigan pocket. Crouching down, she'd held her hand out under the cubicle door, where there in her palm, had been three gold coins. They weren't _real _gold or even actual coins for that matter, just chocolate wrapped in gold foil.

After having spent days with little to eat and nothing but peaches and beans since arriving at the ski lodge, those chocolate coins immediately had Clementine's mouth watering.

"I um, found them in with the decorations. Somebody must've forgotten about them, or they were tossed in by mistake," Sarah had said quietly, glancing over her shoulder as if worried someone would come in and she'd be caught red-handed. "I was going to ask Sarita if we could all share them, but then I forgot, and everybody got really mad so…I-I don't wanna get in trouble; you won't tell anyone will you? You can have them if you want, but just don't tell? Pinky promise? I don't want my dad knowing; he yelled at with me the last time for the bandages, and um…"

Sarah stopped talking when Clementine had stood up, the nervous teen removing her hand with the offered chocolate as that door was unbolted and opened. Clementine had stayed there almost hesitant, peeping partway out from the cubicle, refusing to let go of the frame of that flimsy door as something inside her started to chip away...

"Sarah?"

"Yeah, Clem?"

Scratching at the broken edge of the plastic door with its ugly flowery patterns, Clementine's voice became unsteady as she was to give out a small request that she never thought she'd ever ask someone for, and especially not Sarah.

"Can I…can I have a hug?"

The teen had looked taken aback for a moment, holding those coins close to her chest as if unsure Clementine was being serious, but she had been, _dead _serious.

Timidly, Sarah had shrugged. "Um, sure I guess, if, if you want."

No sooner was she given the okay, had Clementine opened that cubicle door all the way and took those few small steps forward, wrapping her arms around Sarah's waist as Clementine leaned her head on the older girl's shoulder.

It'd been an awkward hug, one Sarah hadn't really responded to, not until Clementine had started unintentionally shedding tears and sniffling like a baby, that in turn caused the fifteen-year-old to drop one of those chocolate coins on the floor as she'd shyly rested her hands on both Clementine's shoulders, sounding both surprised, but concerned too.

"Clem, are you okay? Don't cry, please don't. Clem…"

She hadn't meant to, but she just couldn't hold them in, the tears. Clementine played the tough girl all these years as to not let herself appear weak. Even when Christa and Omid were alive, she wasn't as overly affectionate to the couple as she had been with Lee. After a whole year alone with Christa where not even a smile was shared, happiness, real honest happiness seemed impossible to feel again, and that was the case, for a really long time. Clementine got used to bottling emotions up because of it, yet there she'd been with these new people she cared about, those who she'd formed friendships with and had been able to open up to again...and she was frightened of that all being taken away by having them split up.

That was why Clementine got upset, even if she couldn't come right out and say it. Sarah hadn't needed to listen either, she had just been there for her, and that was enough.

For the longest time afterwards they had sat against the wall of that restroom where the pair had shared those three chocolate coins between them, eating them in tiny bites, for they wanted to enjoy the taste of chocolate while it was still there. And while they had, they'd talked, just about silly things, like stuff they used to do when they were at school, to their favorite songs or food too...as if, as if the apocalypse never really happened.

In a way it was nice, just to talk without it being on the subject of survival or walkers. Clementine was grateful to have had that, to have felt normal again for just a little while.

"We'll always be friends, won't we?"

With that last chocolate coin unwrapped and broken in two to share, Clementine had stopped eating her half at the lonesome expression on Sarah's face, and all from the question the fifteen-year-old had asked.

Clementine didn't have it in her to say yes, because nothing was really forever, and the future wasn't something she could have faith in entirely. But she hadn't dared to say no either, as not to make Sarah more sad, especially after her having been so nice to be as supportive as she was that day.

Instead, Clementine said:

"Why do you ask?"

Sarah had nibbled at her piece of chocolate, not meeting Clementine's gaze. "It's nothing…I only, I had this friend once who I, w-who I really thought was my bestest friend in the whole wide world. But after these new girls came to our school, she didn't want to know me anymore, said I was boring."

"Oh," Clementine toyed with that golden foil with the imprint of the coin's engravings, creating a tear down the middle. "That, sounds mean."

"Yeah it was. It made me really sad too; I thought I knew her," Sarah had looked to her then, her eyes filled with a hopeful wish she wanted fulfilled like a kid wishing on a star. "If we all go to Wellington, it'll be safe there right? There might be lots of nice people there, with a school and everything. If there is, well…I just wanted to know if we'd still be friends."

Discussing going up north with Sarah had felt strange. They hadn't settled on going to Wellington, not officially with the two groups that were so divided at the time. Luke and the others had taken a keen interest on going there after learning of that rumored camp thanks to Kenny, more so since Rebecca was so close to her due date. For them, the trip seemed worth the risk if it meant finding somewhere safe for them all, _and_, somewhere safe to raise her newborn baby.

The plan was there, ready for them to set out on, but not with everybody together in that ski lodge.

Sarah was afraid of saying goodbye, but that wasn't all. Whether they would travel together or apart, eventually, _if, _they had both survived and got there to Wellington in their own time, the question was: would they still be friends, or would their lives split off in two different directions and carry on as if they'd never met each other?

That was why their friendship was left in doubt to Sarah, and what had that shy teenager so sad. Clementine was still a newbie to their group at the time, and didn't _have _to stay with them.

"Sarah…"

"I-It's okay if you don't want to; you don't have to!" Sarah rushed out, the disappointment playing into her body language as she fidgeted with the sleeve of her blue cardigan. "But it'd be fun if we did stay friends, wouldn't it? I know we won't see each other all the time, coz like, we'd be in different grades and schools and stuff, but we can hang out any time after that! We could go to the library if they have one, or ride our bikes in the park, a-and we can have sleepovers too! I always wanted to have one of those, but Dad was always strict about it. He'd probably be okay with you though because you're nice, and not a boy; Dad never likes me being friends with boys, he always scares them away. Like, this one time on Valentine's Day, this one boy named Todd…"

Clementine had only partly listened to Sarah chatter on incessantly about that boy who once had an innocent crush on her, never interrupting Sarah once through every unintentionally funny detail given that had revealed how protective Carlos and Sarah's mother had really been of their daughter back when Sarah had a mother. Hearing all that stuff about Sarah's life before and about her childhood, it'd made Clementine long to have her own childhood back too.

There was a time in Crawford, sitting in that classroom surrounded by all the school books and childish drawings, that Clementine had asked Lee if things would ever be the same again, and really hoped that they would be someday as he'd once said and believed in. Sarah's own dreams of that same hope sounded too good to be true, an impossible thing for their lives to be that perfect and carefree after every uphill struggle they had been through and were yet to face. Even as overly naive as they were, Clementine realized she still had those very same hopes and dreams herself, hidden behind all the walls she'd built up to protect herself and become stronger as a person. But they were broken down over time in the company of that new group, along with her forced friendship with a doctor's daughter who she'd eventually warmed up to.

The truth was, Clementine wanted to go to school again; she wanted to read books in the library and to learn how to ride a bike and have sleepovers too. She wanted a normal life, to be a kid again and to have friends...and already, Clementine had found that friendship with these strangers, and with Sarah as well. Even if it took a while and Sarah had been too innocent to ever figure that out, Clementine didn't want to lose what they had…

"We'll be friends."

Sarah's face had brightened up with a radiant smile of delight, minutes after she'd stopped telling her story and they sat together within that silence. "R-Really? We will!?"

Clementine, smiling too, had held out her little finger. "Yeah, we will."

And with an oath of that pinky swear made that time around without any form of deceit behind it, they'd gobbled up the last of the chocolate, rolling that golden foil into small nuggets, with Clementine's heart feeling that much less burdened.

"Thanks Clem. You know, when we get there, we should make sure we live in the same street so we can see each other whenever! Heeey, maybe you can live with me and dad! Wouldn't that be so cool!?"

"Um…"

Praise the peaches and beans that Rebecca had come into the restroom to check on them a little after that, and saved Clementine from having to answer. But it was thanks to that talk with Sarah, Clementine was able to make up her mind and tell Kenny the truth; she couldn't abandon her group.

It'd been just as difficult a thing to say as it was for the man to accept. But when he finally understood, Kenny had said something that surprised Clementine. He had decided that they would go with them to Wellington together as a whole group, both her friends and him, Sarita and Walter.

"Lee and I bumped heads more times than I dare to count, but that son of a bitch, he always thought he knew best and he helped me deal with tough times. We might not have always seen eye to eye, but he still looked out for Katjaa and Duck even when we didn't agree, and I damn well know he cared about you like his own flesh and blood, Clementine. If there's any way of makin' it up to him now, then it'll be makin' sure you're safe like he'd want you to be."

Clementine could've hugged the old fisherman again like she had outside the ski lodge; she nearly did. The others had seemed a little unsure on bringing Kenny and the others along, but after the adults talked it over on how they'd actually get to Wellington, that shaky agreement was set in place, and the two groups put their differences aside.

They had all left the ski lodge that morning and started the journey up north to Ohio where Wellington waited. There had been arguments, and times not everybody got along, but they were together and Clementine couldn't have asked for more. Tensions weren't as high as before at least, that even Walter was to later break his silence with Nick and try to make amends with the man, telling him that he at least understood that Nick hadn't killed Matthew out of spite and was just trying to protect her and Luke.

Sarah of course, still had her phobias; nevertheless things weren't as frustrating with the teenager after that. Clementine took more pleasure from playing their games and even reading pages out of Sarah's favorite 'The Guurgles' novel and acting out silly voices of the characters for fun.

Clementine did remember one thing in particular that stood out most of all. Before they left the ski lodge, Sarah had taken a decoration from that tree, one of the red Christmas balls, since the angel at the top of the tree was too big to fit in her already full backpack. Sarah said that when Christmas Day came, she would find a tree, just any old tree out there to hang the decoration on, as a way of celebrating the festive day. It'd sounded dumb at first, but it did always brighten up Clementine's mood whenever Sarah took out that decoration during the evenings and held it up to the light of the campfire, as if it was something to remind her that Christmas was another day closer to reaching them.

A Christmas with everybody together, it didn't have to be cheesy or fancy with presents or a tree, just everybody there alive and well would've been enough of a gift for Clementine. She thought, _hoped_, that would be enough and that they'd all pull through until then. Little did they know however, that just three days after leaving the ski lodge, Carver and his men would track them down, Walter would be killed, and the rest of them taken back to Carver's camp, where many of them wouldn't escape alive.

When Christmas Day finally rolled around, their group was gone and it was just her and Luke, spending the day without food and the night running from walkers...

They might've been only friends for nearly a month, but knowing Sarah and having that talk with her that time sitting on the floor of that restroom, it'd helped Clementine come to terms with something. That even though she had been forced to be brave like any adult to prove she was capable and keep going, inside it was another story, because Clementine was still very much afraid and insecure, maybe not to the extreme that Sarah was, but it was still there lurking under her skin.

And with every mile covered that brought her and Luke ever closer to their destination in the north, so was that fear, born from that very insecurity, festering more and more inside Clementine's brain like a tumor.


	4. Chapter 4: Thicker than Blood

A/N: This story has officially been revised and contains news scenes scattered throughout, and the final chapter has been cut into two chapters instead of one. For more information please visit my profile page for all the details.

This is a story that means a lot to me, more so having come back to it. What I did wasn't a rewrite; the story remains intact as it once was with only minor alterations, the biggest being in this final chapter with the removal of a certain lake, and a dream sequence I no longer found myself proud of. For what was once a 50,000 word story, has now exceeded over 70,000 words. There are plenty of new scenes added throughout, all with the intention of expanding on the story which I felt important to include.

Growing Pains was something I first wrote on the spur of the moment, with no clear direction of what I was going to do at first, so I wanted to make improvements and I hope that for old readers or new ones, you enjoy this new revised version. For those still waiting on Skin-Deep, the sequel to this tale, I'm sorry for leaving you waiting so long, progress on that will resume now.

I want to thank all the people who've read this before, and who will in the future, and to my friend and editor Sialark, who was the one who reached out and inspired me to give this story a tune up. Thank you.

* * *

_**The Walking Dead**_  
_**Growing Pains**_

_Chapter 4: Thicker than Blood_

* * *

There was a good reason not too many people ventured into hospitals anymore.

They were once the places where the sick and wounded were treated, and where new life was brought into the world...and where it also ended too; the latter was the reason why they were where many of the dead originally started walking. Hospitals, they must've become false sanctuaries to those who were bitten or dying and were brought there as the world crumbled around them; this was why many were often packed with walkers and weren't safe to be in. Only people in big enough groups and with the firepower to match could clear out such corpse-infested buildings, and if that had already been done, well by then, there wasn't much left to take.

Somebody had cleared this hospital out a long time ago, for the hundreds of dead bodies dumped in the parking lot in huge piles were so decomposed, they were nothing but stacks of skeletons beneath those layers of snow. Inside the hospital was no better off, with as many bullet shells lying on those dirty floors as there were bullet holes in the walls. The horrible stench of death still hung rancid in place of the smell of disinfectant in here, with that once sterile environment now contaminated with the rotting dead; dried-up blood spilled almost everywhere from where the walkers were taken out, the blood of those victims that failed to escape them years ago.

This wasn't a nice place to be; a lot of people had died in here, far too many that the entire hospital felt like a graveyard with how quiet and empty it was. Clementine couldn't let this deceive her into believing the building was now safe; to think like that would get a person killed, and she really wasn't in the mood to get bitten again.

Something crunched loudly beneath Clementine's left shoe, and she retracted her foot, sighting those broken bones and torn pieces of clothing resting in one of the old dried splattered puddles of blood in that waiting area; handbags, coats and even missing shoes were strewn amongst the chairs and on the floors as the unwanted belongings that'd been left to waste away like the corpses outside.

Clementine had witnessed more than enough things out there to give her nightmares for life, but seeing all the carnage left over in here like some violent riot had broken out, it put Clementine at more unease than the usual dead corpse, just saddening her more. Maybe it was because of the amount of blood there was in here, and knowing that it was too much to be from one or a few human beings. _Lots_ of people had been crammed into this area of the hospital, families torn apart and killed right before their eyes. Clementine just knew; there were too many strollers and toys in amongst everything else for there not to have been children here when the walkers attacked, children even younger than her.

There was a baby doll on one of the seats, flat on its back, splattered brown with those plastic eyes staring up at the ceiling with a toy pacifier still in its mouth. For a split second Clementine had seen Nicky there wrapped up dead in her blankets; Christa's face with endless tears streaming down it, holding her nameless baby boy when she'd buried him in the ground...

"Clementine," the whisper travelled through that deserted lobby, once filled with the dying screams echoing inside a memory that wasn't her own but just a depressing thought she didn't want to hang onto. Luke was standing near the doors by Reception, waiting for her to catch up. The tiny flakes of snow from their walk outside were still clinging to the fibers of his dark winter coat. Even within the shadows of that hospital, Clementine could still clearly see those bruises shaded on the left side of Luke's cheek and lower jaw from Joe's beatings, looking as painful as when Luke first received them. "C'mon, daylight's burnin'."

Clementine put aside the grieving thoughts burning in her mind, and hurried along, though not too fast as not to make herself dizzy and trip anywhere. Upon reaching her older friend's side, Luke carefully pushed ajar one of those doors, watchful of anything that might be on the other side, before signalling her to follow him through.

They had chosen to keep on going to Wellington, despite all to have happened with those strangers on the road. Clementine and Luke weren't really sure what to make of the camp up north anymore. A thriving community or an abandoned town with nothing left? It was a risk the pair was still willing to take to find out the truth, because when all was said and done, they had come too far now to give up, so stubborn they chose to be.

As predicted, the weather took another turn for the worse—it had been nothing but non-stop snow. It was still visible from every window of that rundown hospital, falling down over that town that just looked dead beyond the mist, as if frozen in time. The cold was one of the worst culprits to the pair, seeming to feed on all their energy each day; she and Luke barely made it half of what they usually covered in the past, although this was mostly due to Clementine herself having to take more breaks in between walking.

The two of them had been on the road four days now after leaving that farmhouse, and they had run into a major problem: _her_. She had been getting more worn out from all the trekking, where even a hill felt like climbing a mountainside, and her condition wasn't getting any better; in reality Clementine was getting _worse_, with her strength failing her sooner and more frequently with every passing day. Clementine tried her best to push on and to pretend that she was fine, but who was she fooling? Certainly not Luke, and not herself. And after she'd passed out again just yesterday, leaving yet another nasty bruise on her forehead after hitting the pavement, it'd become clear her problem wasn't about to wish itself away anytime soon.

This plan, it wouldn't work. Clementine could tell from the look on Luke's face he had realized this too. She was just too weak to be traveling long distances on foot. But what else were they supposed to do? Clementine didn't have enough time to recuperate when they were so low on food, and she couldn't push herself any harder than she already was, or else she'd end up collapsing dead from a heart attack. Luke might've been strong, but he couldn't carry her all the time, like he was having to already near the end of most days when she couldn't go on, and often against her protesting. What Clementine really needed was to get back to her old self again and to stop being a burden, but the only way she saw that happening fast enough in time for them to survive this trip was for her to grow fangs and drink blood like some stupid vampire.

Funnily enough, it was that tired sarcastic remark that Clementine had spoken aloud the previous evening after they called it a day inside that one-story house, that triggered an idea in her friend's mind; the idea was nothing of the supernatural kind, however it'd still been enough for Luke to have lightly shaken her awake within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

"Your blood, what is it?"

Sleepily Clementine had rubbed her eyes one at time with a blurry look at Luke kneeling by her bedside, her half-conscious brain not really with it.

"W-what…?"

"Your blood type, Clem; you said about it once before, remember? Day before we got nabbed by Carver and his flunkies," he'd said more directly, eyes seeking for some recognition for what he was saying. "Overheard you girls talkin', mentioned you were the same; A-negative, A-positive?"

Sarah.

Right, they'd been reading the Guurgles novel all those months back at the campfire when their group was whole enough to be called that. The main protagonist in the story, Robby, discovered his blood type made him and other survivors of the human population immune to the trans-dimensional body snatchers invading their world. Sarah had rambled on about how she hated the sight of blood, and how once when Sarah had had a blood test she'd fainted just from the needle touching her arm. It'd been then also that the conversation on blood groups came up as well, because Robby's blood was the same blood type as Sarah's was, and coincidently so was Clementine's as well.

With a yawn, she'd sat up. "A-positive, it's A-positive."

"You're absolutely sure about that?" Luke asked with an interest growing behind it she couldn't have yet understood.

"I think so; Mom told me it when I had shots at school once, mentioned us and Dad were all A-Positives, triple A's." Clementine said, pausing when she saw the sudden change in her friend's expression, as if whatever she'd spoken registered. "What?"

What, Luke hadn't revealed; instead, he'd gone straight out the room and into the kitchen across the hall to where Clementine could see their gear was on the table. Taking out the map of the local area, Luke went about searching it for something, and it was Clementine's curiosity over what that _something_ was that had her getting off her lazy butt to find out, tottering over half-awake into that cramped kitchen.

She had gotten to Luke's side near about the same time he'd pointed at a place on the map, sounding pleased. "There, just a couple miles from here there's a hospital on the outskirts of a small town; could be a mighty gamble, but if there's anything left in equipment to use for a transfusion, then it's worth a shot."

A blood transfusion, that's what Luke's plan was. People used to donate blood all the time; even her Mom was a donor once too, so what better a place to find blood than at a hospital? That was a plan that would only have worked when the world was like it used to be, and during the very early days of the apocalypse, not in the here and now.

Clementine had studied that tiny spot on the map, more skeptical than ever. "That's stupid; even if it's safe, they won't have fresh blood on ice anymore, Luke."

"There won't need to be," he'd said not the least bit worried, that'd had Clementine tilting her head at him puzzled.

"How come?" she'd asked.

Luke looked her way then, with a brow raised and a little twinkle in his eye as if he were some mastermind that'd just cracked a top-secret code.

"Double A's," he'd said; "We're the same, kid."

And that's why they were in this hospital, praying they didn't get munched on by walkers while they prepared to gather what they needed to in order to carry out that blood transfusion. It was just a simple A to B plan, on paper anyway, or, or an A-positive plan.

Their cautious steps slowing as to not create too much noise, they walked down that long stretch of corridor, wary of every door and adjoining corridor for anything non-living that might be there. Some of the windows were cracked or broken, allowing the snow to come in, creating much decay over the years from outdoor exposure.

It was disgusting here, seeing a once well-lit, squeaky-clean hospital reduced to a neglected bloody mess, as if somebody had taken bucketfuls of brown paint and splashed it on everything. In that corridor alone they crossed a wheelchair full of bullet holes, and not far from that were some gurneys with heavily stained sheets that stunk foul and rotten. She and Luke passed some elevators too, and Clementine's gut churned at seeing those metal doors smothered in dozens of dark handprints, but equally upsetting were those dirty footprints on the tiles from an old puddle of blood–something or rather _somebody _having been dragged down the stairwell, the trail disappearing down the steps into the shadows; or was it just that somebody had crawled up them? Clementine wasn't sure, and didn't really want to think about it…

Death, it just was always not too far away, and so was the smell of it here, just as bad as back in the lobby. Even for her, Clementine wished she could stop breathing in that musty stench. She was just glad there were no walkers here so they didn't have to put more guts on themselves as she had done to protect herself and Luke when he wouldn't wake up before; it would've been much harder gathering the supplies together now while trying to play it like a living corpse.

For another uncountable time, Clementine checked the gun was still in the holster on her hip adjusted to fit her; Luke had given them to her two days ago when they were fortunate enough to find another gun inside the locked desk drawer inside a house. It was the first time ever Luke really let her keep charge of a firearm, and it made sense, given what happened before with Joe. Clementine was grateful Luke trusted her with a gun now to let her hold onto one full-time, although she could've done without the compliment he gave that she looked like a little sheriff.

Really, stupid…

"So, where exactly are we supposed to look for all this stuff?"

"Anywhere and everywhere, really," Luke said with a slight shrug, keeping his voice as low as hers. He stopped to check down another length of empty corridor before wiping the dust off the long list of the directory mounted on the nearby wall, examining it. "If I took a guess, I'd be thinkin' the...Blood Donor Center? Might have some supplies there if there's anything left, maybe…"

If Clementine wasn't already pale from blood loss, then she sure felt herself going even paler now. "You mean, you don't know?"

Luke gave a weak smile. "Nope, not a clue! Me and hospitals don't have that great of a history; never worked in one, and the only time I was a patient was for gettin' a penny stuck up my nose over a lost bet."

Clementine hesitated. "Drunk?"

"No, hah...nah, I was a kid that time, your age I think."

"Um…"

"Look, don't be worryin' about all this; it's just some simple treasure huntin' is all," Luke said, shaking some of the snow from his hair on passing another one of those smashed up windows letting in the horrible weather. "We'll get some blood in you if we have to inject it through a damn syringe; you're gonna be fine.

"…"

Her life couldn't be in safer hands; really it couldn't.

* * *

They crossed very few walkers during their sweep of that hospital's first floor, with the dead being more of a nuisance than a threat. This was all except for a half walker, who had been a sneaky one, crawling out from some torn-down curtains once separating patients that inconveniently concealed that still-live corpse. Only by the sound of that very same curtain being dragged along the floor from behind was the pair alerted in time for Luke to kill the walker by crushing its skull in, just as it'd been reaching out to go take a bite out of his ankle.

That close call gave them both a real scare, and not long after they found the body of a woman who had shot herself in the head after becoming bitten near the neck. She must've been scavenging the hospital for leftover supplies like them, because her bag was full of medicines, something the dead woman had made certain that at least somebody else would benefit from, given that red arrows had been drawn on the wall in lipstick, pointing towards the backpack by her corpse, with a simple message written:

_ALL _  
_YOURS._

Clementine couldn't really tell apart many of the medicines in that bag; most the names on the boxes were too complicated for her to even pronounce, yet there was a special something that Clementine saw that she was in desperate need of, and that was liquid morphine! There were two bottles of the stuff, with some clean syringes in there too. At the right dosage Clementine's pain from her lost limb would finally be put at bay thanks to that woman, but because of Clementine's anemia, Luke wouldn't let her take any just yet, not until they got the blood transfusion done.

The dead woman's gun was empty, no other ammo on her, and the only food she had was some energy bars in her jacket containing raisins and nuts; it was something at least, and she and Luke were all too glad to scarf those things down and partly fill their empty stomachs before moving on.

After all this and a few little detours, they were to later end up at the Blood Donor Center at the far end of the building, and encountered another walker. It was a man who had turned recently, and by that Clementine meant maybe he'd turned a few weeks ago. The walker wasn't difficult to take down with just a swing of Luke's machete. The man that walker used to be must've gotten injured; a cord of intravenous line was still hooked up to his arm, with gross bandages hanging off the other and his exposed stomach bearing crooked stitches that made Clementine think of Joe's friends that she'd shot, and silently questioned to herself if they were still alive, and if she even cared if they were.

There was a blood-stained bag down by one of the many beds in that room, but it was empty. The bag was familiar, and Clementine recognized why, because it was identical to the one the dead lady had had, with all the medicine. Yeah, the woman's bag had been red too hadn't it, or had it been brown?

Could they have both been...

Seeing those maggots wriggling out from one of the walker's rotten eye sockets, Clementine forced herself to look away. "That thing, can we use that?"

Her doubting question was directed at the intravenous line-IV for short, and a bag of half empty fluid attached to a knocked down drip stand it was still hooked up to.

There wasn't much left in here; the small trolleys around the room used for holding medical equipment were all but bare. Apart from those beds, useless documents were scattered about the place, and some dust, but there wasn't anything worth taking. By the same bed with that bag, there was some equipment; it was some surgical stuff on a metal tray, like somebody had done a botched job in fixing the dead man up. The surgical stuff was useless though, because they were laced in blood and looked filthy like the bandages next to them. Even if they were washed clean, using them after being in a room with a walker—Clementine didn't like the idea of that, and anyway, surgery wasn't what they were here for.

"No, no I wouldn't count on it; I'd trust drinkin' stagnant dog piss first for what that thing's worth," Luke said, referring to the intravenous line. His attention focused on some unopened doors at the far back of the room, and he motioned at Clementine to follow. "Let's keep lookin' around in here; gotta be somethin' left."

There wasn't much though, not here. Whoever wiped out that mass of walkers had taken a lot of the medical supplies. It was definitely too big an operation for a small group of people, something that had Clementine again clinging to the hope that maybe it was those from Wellington, or from another community out there somewhere that might be safe to go to.

Regardless, the fact that some group had taken most of the good stuff didn't exactly help their own situation. It was just luck that however well-planned the past group's operation was, some things had still been left behind—either overlooked, or whoever was here before wasn't able to take any more. This was made evident not just by the woman's bag of goodies, but also by the discovery of the first item on their list of things to get that was stored in a room out back in a cabinet; it was a couple unused blood bags, so Luke had taken one and an extra just in case.

The rest of what they needed for the transfusion required nearly another hour of searching that hospital, checking through room by room on the first floor, and then taking the stairs to the second. It was a mess up there too, more windows broken or left wide open from where people had maybe jumped, with the bits of human remains that her and Luke discovered a few fat rats feasting on, ew.

When they found that one operating theater out of others they'd ventured into, it felt kinda weird to go in and find it completely spotless with no blood or anything like that, as if they'd both finally reached the end of some haunted house ride and escaped all the fake guts and people in their costumes. Still, it was particularly dark in there with no windows or light source, so Luke had to use a flashlight to look around. Upon checking, there were no walkers, and not much else; it looked like the place had been prepped for surgery or had been cleaned up after one. There was a bed thing, and some big lamps attached to the ceiling, and some odd-looking machines, but...

As Luke walked by to check the cabinets on the far side of the room, Clementine saw something catch her eye down by a metal trolley next to one of those nameless machines, the light reflecting off its plastic surface. Curiosity might've killed a cat somehow, but Clementine got rewarded for hers.

"Luke, over here." Her friend came at her calling, after Clementine had picked up the something hidden under the trolley that she'd seen. It was some IV lines, all packaged and unopened; it was just what the pair were looking for.

_'Yes!'_

Luke had only to check them over with his flashlight for a second to recognize that too, and smiled. "Yeah, that just about does it with those needles from the ward; nice job, Clem."

She and Luke didn't have time celebrate. It was just a few hours before sundown, and Luke decided it best they carry out the transfusion at the hospital itself in case of any complications. They didn't have any time to waste, so the duo chose a doctor's office on that same floor, one that was both clean and secure enough to carry out the procedure, but not boxed in like that operating theater. Here in this office, they had somewhat of a good look-out point to the front of the hospital and of the road going into town despite the poor visibility in this weather, but if anybody or anything came by, they'd see them.

Playing lookout however was the very least of Clementine's concerns, because even once Luke got everything set up and that needle was inserted into his arm, Clementine couldn't help getting a little nervous watching that blood flow down the IV line, draining into the very blood bag she was holding, the one Luke instructed her to keep turning from corner to corner so the warm liquid wouldn't settle.

"Have you done this before?"

Upon Clementine asking that, there was soon a familiar shaky laugh from her friend from up on that examination table, his response not one that did the job in reassuring her the slightest bit. "Not directly speakin', no."

Clementine stopped rotating that bloodbag where she was sitting in that chair, her wide-eyed fright having Luke quickly change his answer to a less joking one. "Carlos, he uh, I saw him do this stuff at the camp on a patient once; guy had gotten shot, lost a lot of blood, so Pete gave him some of his."

"Oh, okay," Clementine continued swishing around that blood that slowly but surely was filling up that bag. She wriggled her toes inside her shoes. "That's it?"

"Yup, just the one, but I got a sharp memory on me and it ain't that tough a thing to remember; like ridin' a bike," Luke said very optimistically, yet Clementine felt only more troubled, unable to prevent her eyes from drifting over to the diagram on the wall in that doctor's office; it was a diagram comprised of the human body that was half a man of muscle and sinew, and the other bones, too much like the corpses outside.

She sighed. "I wouldn't know."

Thirty minutes later and the bag was full, with Luke up on his feet again feeling a little lightheaded he said, but other than that fine. From there, came the next phase in the transfusion that left Clementine wishing she could face off against some walkers if it meant she was able get out of it. Like Luke had once said before amputating part of her arm, he wasn't a doctor; if he had handled things better, Clementine might not have lost so much blood in the first place. Knowing this, she couldn't put the blame on him, because if Luke hadn't done it, she'd be a goner, and Clementine sure would never have had the guts to cut off her own arm to save her life.

For Luke to give back some of what she'd lost, was probably his means of making amends for that, more than just helping her out so Clementine would be well enough to travel again; they wouldn't be here otherwise if Luke didn't want to help her.

So long as this selfless act didn't get her killed, then…

"Okay your turn, kid."

Clementine grumbled, wrinkling her nose as her friend grabbed her from under both arms and hoisted her up onto the examination table he'd been sitting on before. The sight of that blood pack hung up on that drip stand put her in no brighter mood.

"I'm gonna die," Clementine whined.

"Now that's no way to be talkin'; have a little faith in me with this would ya?" Luke said almost sounding tired towards the end of it, as his own words wound up turning against him when he leaned against that examination table not far from her as if he was just chilling out leisurely, yet his hand had grabbed the side of the table suddenly, too fast, as if he'd been quick to steady himself.

Luke didn't look too good come to think of it, almost pale.

"Are you okay?" Clementine asked in concern, studying her friend closely.

Luke, he just waved it off, yet he didn't stand up straight again, still leaning against the examination table for support. His words came out almost slurred. "Yeah I'm fine, it's cool; just gimme a sec."

Clementine remembered something then, how Mom had said the first time she had donated blood when she was younger, she'd almost passed out because she hadn't drunk enough fluids, and it'd been maybe half an hour or so before Mom was well again; that might explain Luke's condition. Even after drinking some bottled water before, giving up a pint of blood had still knocked him out, sort of.

"Maybe you should rest for a bit?"

"No time, gotta get this done now, or that blood will be no good," Luke insisted, slowly standing up properly again, staring at the bloodbag of his own personal homebrew a little dozily. "Let's just getcha hooked up, okay? Then restin', maybe I'll think about...yeah."

Given enough time to recover—somewhat—Luke rolled up Clementine's sleeve when she had tried and failed to do so with her painful stumpy limb. It took Luke ages to find a vein for that needle to go in, taping it to her skin like he had done so with himself, and before Clementine really knew it, whether she approved of this plan or not, she was being fed Luke's blood from that drip directly into her bloodstream.

In those first couple minutes, Clementine expected for something terrible to happen, like getting an allergic reaction or that the needle might pop right out of her arm and spew out blood like when she'd lost part of that limb back at the river in the woods. Yet, those minutes were to tick silently by and nothing bad really happened. If anything, Clementine thought she could feel the transfusion taking effect in a positive way, the once abnormal rhythm of the heart beating inside her chest beginning to gradually slow, not having to work so hard to pump the blood through her body. She was getting better, very slowly, but still, better.

Sure, the amount in that bag wouldn't cure Clementine and have her back to full health like before, but so long as it did some good in allowing her to make it the rest of the way to Wellington, then that's all that mattered; they had to make it.

Clementine lowered her head, flexing her fingers while she studied that IV line filled with the blood like some plastic artery, which in some ways, it kind of was. "Do you think there'll be people there?"

"Where, Wellington?"

"Yeah."

"…Dunno, tough to say," Luke said from across the office where he was sitting at that doctor's desk while he rested up as he'd said he would. He'd found a first-aid kit in here not long before, inside one of the cupboards above a sink, missed by the scavengers like a lot of things. Luke was still busy going through its contents that would definitely be a lot of help to them. "With all the rumors and people headin' that way, there's gotta be somebody up there; really all depends if they're friendly folk or not."

The dead man and his truck that they came across before, and the trio that tried to kill Luke and take her away on the same day, neither one had forgotten about that. On the one hand they had the dead man who'd supposedly been to Wellington and turned around, while on the other hand there was the couple and their friend that said there was still a fully functional community up there. Which was she and Luke supposed to believe, the man eaten by walkers or the attempted murderers?

"But, if they weren't nice people, wouldn't the rumors mention that?" Clementine asked.

"No, not always so. We all thought Carver's-" Luke stopped himself, eventually shaking his head as if to rid himself of the memories of that community. "Things get sugar-coated to the desperate, make folks hear what they wanna if it reels 'em in like fish. Better to keep an open mind on that stuff y'know? Expect the unexpected."

Clementine didn't have to argue with him on that. Joe and Martha, they'd been doing that exact thing to them in manipulating the facts of Wellington so they could get close enough to snatch her. But what if there was some truth in what they'd said, and more behind their reasons for trying to take her? If only she was better at reading people that were a challenge, then maybe Clementine could've figured that couple out better and their lies, yet like with Andrew and Danny and their mother at the dairy back in Georgia, Clementine hadn't a clue they were in danger until it was too late.

"Yeah, I know," she said. Balling her hand into a loose fist, she turned it over and opened her fingers again to her palm, noticing the healthier pigment in her skin was starting to come back; Clementine's head felt less foggy now too. "But, I like to think there will be something there, that it won't be all bad. Like maybe…maybe, they'll have lots of chocolate and stuff."

"Hah, well I wouldn't say no to that," Luke admitted with a chuckle, pulling out what looked like bandages from the first-aid kit, along with a couple other things she couldn't identify. "Gotta admit, some normality would be a welcome after all this. I swear, what I wouldn't give to play some pool and listen to one of those damn jukeboxes again; yeah, those were the days."

" 'Jukebox?' " Clementine repeated, the word foreign on her tongue.

"Sure, like for playin' records, but uh," Luke trailed off, and gave her an amused look. "What? Don't tell me yer folks never took you to a bar before?"

Clementine shook her head.

"Oh, well…well you were probably too young to be hangin' around those sorta places anyway," Luke said, quickly dismissing the subject and he went back to checking through that first-aid kit. "Best you didn't really; hell knows if you'd gotten yerself into the trouble me and boys did growin' up, you'd of ended up a real wild sprout, kid."

_'Sprouts, yuck.'_

Clementine swung her legs back and forth from where she sat, a smile eventually to bloom in her trying to imagine both Luke and Nick as teenagers, and failing miserably. "But you both turned out okay, you and Nick…well, sort of."

" '_Sort of?' _Hah, that's mighty kind of you to be honest," her older friend said comically.

Clementine stared out the office window, just vaguely being able to distinguish through those blinds the tops of some buildings beyond the treeline, the town. "Well, you did lock me in a shed."

"_Hey! _Now that weren't my idea; I told ya that already," Luke said, his good mood snubbed out, looking over hurtfully. "C'mon, you always gonna be draggin' that up? Let sleepin' dogs lie."

Clementine rolled her eyes in pretend annoyance at that, yet deep down she couldn't help thinking of a certain dog from way back when, scavenging for scraps within the ghost of its owners' camp in the woods. The memory of that poor animal impaled and dead after she'd slit its throat to end its suffering, it made Clementine consciously grasp her arm just above her stump where a small part of the jagged scar from Sam's bite still remained beneath those bandages.

"I used to…I always wanted a dog, or a puppy," Clementine said after a while. "Mom said I couldn't because they were too much work and I wasn't old enough, so she and Dad gave me a hamster instead."

The face Luke pulled at that very moment was probably identical to the one Clementine had pulled all those years ago when she'd seen that fluffy little hamster for the very first time in her bedroom; all those weeks of asking her parents if they could get a puppy, and only a hamster came out of it. It was a lie to say she wasn't disappointed, but, she did warm to that hamster eventually.

"Oh, well, that ain't _too _bad." Luke said. "Whatcha call him?"

"Bubbles."

"And what happened to Bubbles the great?"

"…he died," Clementine said with a frown. "He was always escaping from his cage, because he liked being out, and he got electrocuted."

It was a just a hamster, an insignificant nothing nobody would care about was gone when there was so much death going around. But she missed him, she missed watching Bubbles run around in his blue hamster ball, stuffing tiny carrot pieces into his cheek pockets and grooming himself while he sat in her hands. It was all a simpler time when it was so easy to love a pet and not think of them as food. Now if Clementine caught a hamster, she probably would've eaten it.

"Oh…well, I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

Done with that first-aid kit, Luke set it aside for a moment, resting an arm up on the desk as he massaged his forehead, exhaustion making him look much older than he was. "Betcha would've been jealous of my folks then; had me a Labrador when I was five."

Clementine nearly fell off the examination table. "What, no way."

"Yes way."

"That's not fair."

"Doubt that; damn mutt could be a hurricane to control sometimes, runnin' about the place, barkin' all hours; sure liked chewin' shoes too," the enthusiasm in Luke's voice fizzled, the hand falling away from his face. "Didn't have him all too long, about a couple years before cancer got him, but he was a good dog; Sparks his name was."

_Cancer_, Clementine cringed at the word her parents and doctors used more than enough times from when Grandma was sick. "Did you ever get another dog after that?"

"Yeah, but she didn't last too long neither," the soft brown eyes of her older friend's twitched for a split second like a bee had stung him. Then he just seemed to shake it off. "Thinkin' of it, I had it pretty good; old man was on my case a lot sure, wantin' me to take responsibility over the farm, keep to family tradition and shit…and Ma, she had a temper when she needed it, always had to be doin' _somethin'_, but they weren't the kinda folks that'd make ya wanna be skippin' town soon as you turned eighteen'. It was alright…"

"…and you had a dog," Clementine added enviously. "I mean, _dogs_."

"Hah! Yeah, that too; I was a spoilt sonuvabitch," Luke leaned his head back into that doctor's chair, deflated and weary. He spoke, his mind seeming miles away. "Never know whatcha got til it's gone; true about that. Never took nothin' for granted, but…could've done a lot more, I ought to of; maybe, thought things out better, I dunno…"

It hurt to hear that. Clementine related to that same feeling, too much; her parents, her friends at school, all gone. If she'd known the world would change, she would've been a better person, a better daughter…

_**'We'll always be friends, won't we?'**_

A better…

Luke rubbed his forehead, appearing as if he might drift away to the land of Nod with the way he was just sitting there with his eyes closed, before they snapped open again. He leaned forward slowly, a false cough as he cleared his throat, as if ashamed of himself.

"Sorry, kid. Don't mean to get nostalgic on ya."

Clementine's grip tightened on the edge of that examination table, as she stared out from the gaps in those dusty blinds to where the snow fell outside. The white haze of that winter consumed everything of that town not far past the hospital, as if the rest of the world had been erased from existence.

"Your other dog, what was her name?" she asked.

Luke answered after a deep pause.

"Sparky."

"That's…"

"Original, I know."

They didn't say anything else after that, mostly because Luke had slipped back into a state Clementine liked to call 'just resting my eyes' that a lot of tired adults had phrased to her, so, she decided just to leave him alone.

But while she sat there, that blood draining into her veins, the past never ceased haunting her of everything they had lost.

Friends, Clementine had a lot of those once, but, they always made a habit of disappearing whether they meant to or not. Friendship meant a lot to her, now more than ever without her parents alive. Without any friends, people to trust, a person had no one to rely on; they were alone and small in a big world with nobody there to enjoy the good times with, or help them through the worst.

That day after getting separated from Christa, Clementine must have walked for hours in those woods, lost, half-delirious from the dog bite and dehydration as she'd tried to find her way back to her friend, and couldn't; she succeeded in only going around in circles. As those woods had become darker and thunder rumbled like drums in the skies above, they'd all fed her insecurities, her fear that she might never make it out of there as a living person. It'd felt that same way when leaving Savannah, not knowing what would happen next…

Clementine didn't want to ever end up that way again, to be all by herself. Sarah's wish was once for them to be neighbors or living under the same roof, yet that wish had reminded Clementine of the sad truth that she was without parents, an orphan. It didn't mean much in a world like this where survivors band together in groups and became families themselves, but, no matter how far she'd come since all this had started, Clementine knew that wouldn't be enough in a place like Wellington.

If it was safe there, if it was run by lots of good people, she would be looked at as a kid again, a little girl that couldn't be taken seriously and would need to have decisions made for her. An orphaned girl couldn't continue being an orphan, and that was something that distracted Clementine a lot these days, along with the importance friendship held to someone, when they had nothing else left…

"Luke?"

It took a while for him to answer, but he did soon enough.

"Yeah?"

The words Clementine was going to say were gone suddenly; staring out at that snowy winter as she struggled to speak. She dithered too long, long enough that Luke noticed.

"Clem? What's the matter?"

Instead of answering truthfully, Clementine lost her nerve and just shook her head. "It's nothing."

"Really? That don't sound like nothin' to me," Luke said, trying to bring some cheer to the situation, but not doing a good job at it. "What's eatin' you? You're uh, you're not feelin' faint or anythin' yerself are ya?"

"Uh, no, not that."

"Then what?"

Clementine stared down at her legs from where they hung off the side of the examination table, her feet too high to be touching the floor. Her mind was cast back years ago, to a time she had once sat like this while on a moving train on the way to Savannah, watching the trees of autumn go by, and the dirt and stones blurring below her sandals where she could just see the railway ties of those old tracks.

She remembered Lee had been sitting right beside her then too, and she remembered something that he once said that day…

"You and me, we're a team now right?"

A confused blink came from Luke with a questioning frown to match, not quite getting at what she was saying as he sat up a bit straighter from where he was at that doctor's desk.

Clementine ignored him and the voice of doubt in her head that told her to quit while she was ahead, and she just carried on anyway. "Teams look out for each other, and they always stick together because that's what they're supposed to do. Even when they don't really _have _to anymore, they still do, don't they?"

It was from there, Luke seemed to catch on.

"Is this about Wellington?" he asked.

Of course it was. It'd been on her mind for months, even when she was with Christa as the woman barely held onto her will to live, just to make that trip for Clementine's sake.

After Luke and Pete saved her, Clementine stuck with that group despite their bumpy beginnings, because she'd had to in order to stay alive. Christa was dead, and she'd had nowhere else to go, nobody to look out for or to depend on if and when things got bad. When the others were gone, it made sense for her and Luke to stay together, because they were both travelling to the exact same place; they were on the same journey. They were a team, and he was her friend, her only friend.

If everything said about Wellington was true, that it was free of walkers, self-sustaining with a community, families even…what would happen then? What would _they _both do?

Luke wasn't family, not real family. He wasn't her Dad, he wasn't her brother, her cousin, or uncle either. They weren't family, and she couldn't do anything about it, if he left.

"No, it's…" Clementine tucked her good arm around her side to mimic crossing both arms, and she turned her head away from her friend, the words on the tip of her tongue to say it, only for it to slip away. "It's just…you're really bad at poker and I don't want them walking all over you, that's all…you suck."

Even with poor effort of an insult, Luke still laughed. "That's sayin' it a mighty harsh, ain't it? C'mon, it's only 'cause I let you win most times, alright? I ain't all that bad, Clem."

"Sure," from the corner of Clementine's vision, she caught her friend getting up from his seat, sidestepping out from the desk a little bit tipsily. As he was about to go over to where he'd left his rucksack on the counter below the cupboards, right there, spur of the moment, Clementine came out and said it, pulling the best countryish Southern accent she could impersonate, as she repeated _exactly _what she'd overheard Luke saying to himself the other day while he'd been shaving. " 'Dang it, how'd she go winnin' ten rounds in a row like that? Kid's worse than Pete!' "

It would've made Nick proud, for sure.

A single trip in his stride, Luke's foot caught the legs of one of the chairs by the front of the desk, dragging the thing out of place as he tripped; he was just able to catch his balance, but not the contents of the first-aid kit he'd been carrying that was spilled out on the floor. Undeniably, even with that mess made, there was no mistaking Luke's failure to keep a straight-face.

"Son of a...okay _fine_! Beginner's luck then."

"Beginner's luck two months running."

"Don'tcha get cocky."

Clementine smiled proudly to herself, yet it was a smile to fade fast as the funniness of the moment passed, and her focus was drawn upwards to the blood bag on the drip stand; it was half empty, if less than that…

"Guess that don't leave me much choice then."

Clementine looked back at Luke from where he was kneeling, gathering up the medical supplies he'd dropped. "What doesn't?"

"Well uh, not that there's any truth to it or anythin', y'know, flawless poker track record talkin' here, but um...see, see guys like us we uh, we can't be too careful in a game of cards; a real risky business, even for skilled pros like myself," cracking under her judging gaze, Luke coughed a cough that was as fake as his bluff, and he quickly scooped up the last of the supplies into his arms. "What I mean is, I reckon it'd be damn stupid not havin' a sidekick around to help out; in fact, sure would be wise of me havin' one tag along period, y'know back me up every once in a while even after, in case we gotta bail, that kinda thing; you get me?"

She got it; it took a little while thinking he'd lost it from the blood transfusion, but it clicked eventually. Spoken cryptically and like it was no big deal, but the message was clear.

Warmth swelled inside Clementine's chest. "You mean it?"

"Sure, yeah I do; I'd be a real piece of shit if I didn't," Luke said assertively, finally having everything stored away in that rucksack. "All those times you've gone and done stickin' your neck out on the line for me, I owe you big time, kid. Besides, I'm ninety-nine percent sure Kenny would be rainin' a shitstorm on me if I didn't at least…Clem?"

Clementine didn't hear him anymore, only saw what Luke was still yet to out those windows, the shapes that were emerging out from the misty-like haze of that storm out on the street. They came from the direction of the town, and there were dozens of them, no...no, no! There had to be much more than that, at least over a _hundred, _and more kept coming.

Oh no.

Following her gaze, Luke rushed forward to part those blinds, a curse escaping past his lips at seeing that herd of walkers spread out on the road and on a direct course for the hospital. The cold seemed to be slowing them down, but they'd still be here within a few minutes and would swarm this place in half the time once they were. She and Luke would be trapped in here.

Panicking, Clementine hopped off from the examination table with the IV line still connected to her arm, the painful tugging on that needle stopping her from reaching her friend by the window. "We gotta get out of here!"

There was no hiding from a herd that big in here, no way; they hadn't enough ammo to take on that amount of walkers either.

Walker guts, would they even work out in the snow?

"Luke!"

Snapping out of it, he'd looked at her and then at the blood bag, the thing still not empty. A final swift glance to those windows Luke was stepping hastily away from, he came on over and went about getting her unhooked. "Right, yeah I hear ya!"

Removing that IV line as safely as possible, Luke stored away into his rucksack what was left in that blood bag, along with the other hospital supplies they'd gotten for the transfusion; Luke said they'd just have to try giving her the rest of the blood later if it was still useable by then, although he hadn't sounded so sure.

Their coats back on and their gear ready, they'd taken their leave from the doctor's office as the herd was clustering outside the front of the hospital grounds. Already in that urgency to make an escape from that building, Clementine felt the difference in herself as the duo ran down that corridor, heading for the stairs; there wasn't any dizziness, and she could move better now without feeling so weak and shaky like she might collapse. The blood transfusion had helped; it had actually helped! Clementine might've been more relieved about that if not for the dead. Yeah, she could celebrate that later, if they had a later.

They were fast in retracing their steps, bringing them back to the hospital lobby in no time at all, but fast enough. The double doors by Reception hadn't time to close behind them before Luke was pulling her back upon them both discovering the entrance was a no-go; the walkers had beaten them to it, already piling into the hospital and filling that lobby.

"Fuuuck, _move!_" Luke shouted, and by the arm Clementine was dragged back through the doors, bolting down the hospital corridor they had previously come from. "We'll find another exit c'mon!"

They cut through the hospital where it would take them out the back, going to the first fire exit they came across on that south end. For the first time in a long time, Clementine was the one running ahead in the lead instead of Luke, her hand grabbing at the long handle on the red door with the sign above it saying 'Push to Open'. The winter hit her with a blast, her cheeks flushing red from the cold, air freezing up in her lungs. She pushed and pushed, but the door wouldn't open all the way.

"Ack! It's no good, it's stuck; something's blocking it!" Clementine looked back as Luke caught up, barely walking at a snail's pace on approach and looking out of it again. He wobbled in his strides in his last few steps, stumbling against the nearest wall that Luke clung to for the balance he couldn't regain. Roughly her friend dropped down on his knees, and he stayed there.

Clementine let go of the door, rushing to his side. "Luke! Luke are you okay!?"

"I'm fine, don't...fuck, thought I was past this," he groaned with his skin paler than before, and his lips a faint shade of blue; it freaked Clementine out. Luke didn't sound too good either, if worse than he'd been earlier. "Pete was right; this blood givin' thing really knocks the stuffin' out of ya don't it? How the hell are you still walkin' around, kid?"

Clementine wished she could've argued with that, because she'd had to deal with it a lot worse and for longer than he had. But there wasn't time for a lecture over what a big baby Luke was. The loud crash of glass breaking had Clementine's nerves even more on edge; it'd come from somewhere in the building, close. The dead would soon have this place surrounded! It'd be like Savannah again, trapped inside with nowhere to run. They couldn't afford that, not now!

"I won't be if you don't hurry up! We gotta go!" Clementine pulled at her friend's arm as hard as she could, trying to get him up. "Come on, I'll help you, but you gotta move! _Come on Luke!_"

At the sounds of more glass being smashed to pieces within the building, and of the hungry dead and their uneven footsteps shuffling in their large numbers through the halls with shadows creeping around the bend, Luke was coaxed into action, picking himself back up and shakily balancing himself out.

"Yeah, y-yeah okay! Don't feel all that much like takin' a nap here anyways. Help me with this."

Together they pushed on the fire exit door, managing to force it open wide enough to slip through the gap. Luke nearly stumbled again upon getting outside, holding onto the side of the big dumpster that'd been blocking the way. "Go on, I'm right behind you."

Clementine didn't listen, the sight of figures stepping out from either side of the hospital making her grab her friend's arm again to get him moving sooner than he was ready to.

"Not without you."

* * *

They got away. It wasn't easy, but they managed it. Luke wasn't able to run again just yet, still being wiped out. The best her friend was capable of was only a brisk walk, with short jogging spurts fast to end with him stumbling after getting lightheaded. Trying to gain distance from the herd did them no good; speed wasn't how they were going escape, or hiding either.

A tall steel fence running along the length of the road, that's how they got away. The dead could be scary sometimes in how they picked up the smell of blood like a bear could, or how they never tired once; but walkers weren't smart, they'd try to break a door down, rather than just open it by the turn of a handle.

"Luke, over there!" she'd tugged her dazed friend by the arm, having motioned him towards the fence, and he'd caught on too. Yeah, the final stretch of their escape was an easy one, by the simple act of bolting that metal gate shut behind them, so they couldn't be followed. That fence was built to last, resilient against the dead ramming up against it, gathering in their plenty. It protected her and Luke, but also it gave them enough time to focus on the details missed while fleeing.

While standing catching their breath, Clementine caught on to what made these walkers so different from other herds they had encountered, and that was that they hadn't been dead long. They had sunken eyes and faint graying skin, resembling more the starved crowds of people that hadn't eaten in days, not the shambling skeletons of unrecognizable corpses. And as those dead pushed up against the fence, their faces squashed between the metal pickets, Clementine saw the young and old staring back at her.

Among them, there was a girl nearly the same age as her, with long blonde pigtails; she could've almost passed for living if it weren't for the whites of her eyes. The dead girl and several other walker children were being crushed by the other adult walkers as more of the herd gathered at that fence, their small arms outstretched, fingers grappling wildly at the thin air, as if trying to reel Clementine in for help.

"Oh my god, Luke-"

"I know, _I know!" _He couldn't look at them, being the one between them to turn away, leaning over heavily on his knees as if threatening to hurl. "Jesus..."

The sight of those dead made Clementine want to cry. These people hadn't been bandits when they were alive, there were too many children. And there were tears in all their clothing, blood staining them, like they had been shot at. They were _murdered_, not even shot in the head to stop them turning.

_'What happened to you?'_

"We gotta go; too many of em' crowded like that's gonna bring the whole fence down with us stayin' here baitin' 'em like this...Clem, Clem are you listenin'!?" Luke had been yanking at her arm, forcing her to get moving, because she couldn't stop standing there, staring at those kids and the unfairness of it. Why couldn't things be different?

Brought out from her shaken state, she and Luke soon left the herd at that fence, disappearing into the smoggy mist of the trees to where the walkers couldn't follow. They traveled for as long as the remaining daylight allowed, she and Luke only passing a few more walkers along the way, hardly nothing. They were more decomposed and weak than the herd, their bodies too affected by the cold and decay to do much other than shuffle around stiffly and fall over themselves. By that point, Luke was feeling a lot better, and was able to take the walkers down without any trouble, as easy as squishing bugs.

Clementine felt sick thinking that.

"Y'know, it scares me kid," Luke came out with, while leaning against a wooden utility pole, one of many down that empty road through the woods, their cables laced in icicles, yet none big enough to be deadly if they'd fallen. The snowfall had finally let up, and Luke had been taking a short breather, but her friend had this strange look on his face, like, the over-thinking kind. It made Clementine uneasy whenever she saw him like that.

"What does?"

Luke wouldn't even look at her, choosing to kept his eyes steady on the walkers he'd downed instead as his shoulders sagged. His voice was distant, sad. "Gettin' used to all this."

The silence was too unsettling in the gust of that winter breeze circulating around them. Clementine hung her head until her chin pressed against the collar of her coat, her eyes staring dead at an iced up puddle in the road, the droplets of dark blood from those corpses splattered across it.

In a somber manner, she'd set her foot down on the ice, applying pressure on that slippery surface, until it finally cracked and split open under her shoe.

She couldn't say anything.

They found a canoe rental building as it'd been getting dark, after following the winding road along a frozen river. Canoes and kayaks were stacked out front, topped with snow; those boats and oars no use to them in winter and probably wouldn't be safe if any bandits saw them from the shore. There was nothing lost or gained, and yet, something told Clementine that if Kenny were still alive, he would've liked using those boats for travel in better weather.

She and Luke searched the small wooden building over, uncovering all the not-so-handy-things like lifejackets, swimwear, and a reception counter full of brochures about camping trips and riding boats out on that river, 'Fun for all the family!' they claimed in big bright letters. The smiling faces of picture-perfect parents and their children in those brochures and up on posters, they made an emptiness in Clementine's chest grow more hollow. Her old life with her mom and dad never seemed that perfect, not even her time with Lee. She didn't believe that thing existed, not even when times were better than this.

The old faint smell of urine from the restroom, the empty bottles and food cans littered about the building, the makeshifts beds from newspapers and cardboard, they were all signs people had crashed there before them, although none looked recent. Things were musty and dusty, nothing stashed there, the ash in the tiny fireplace all piled up, no signs anybody was about to pop back in at any second.

It was a no-brainer that it would do for the night.

Once getting a fire started, it came down to the task of using that liquid morphine. The type of morphine that it was, it couldn't be injected; that's all Luke knew thanks to Carlos, but what he didn't know and neither did she, was how much morphine she could have without overdosing. There was only so much time Clementine could wait, sitting there crossed-legged with her hand propping up her chin while her friend kept looking between the bottle of morphine and those tiny little numbers and lines on that needleless syringe, trying to figure out the dosage on his own like it were math.

"Luuuke," she'd whined, slowly dying of boredom.

"Alright, gimme a sec…okay, that oughta do it," some morphine finally drawn out, her friend had handed over the syringe. "If you start feelin' sick or anythin'-"

"I know," Clementine said, inspecting the morphine in that needleless syringe for a few seconds before squirting it down the back of her throat. The morphine tasted bitter, really, really bitter. But she didn't get sick at all and no signs of overdosing. A veil finally went over the pain in her stump by the time they'd sat down to eat.

Luke, being the fool that he was, suggested they should eat the can of dog food they'd gotten from the pickup truck, so it wasn't the last thing in their supplies to go. He even heated the stuff up with that stupid tiny fireplace, not that it did much good for the taste; it was worse than the morphine. They had both been gagging over each bite, only compelled into eating it all through the race Luke proposed, saying that the first one to finish their meal on those stupid plastic plates of theirs would claim the last stick of gum they had on them, gained from their time at the farmhouse.

Now that was one game Clementine let Luke be the victor of, because no minty chewing gum was going to make her eat that gross dog food any faster. Luke still ended up giving her the stick of gum anyway, which Clementine defiantly broke in half awkwardly with her one hand to share with him, which led them to play another stupid game in trying to blow bubbles. Of course, both didn't have enough gum for that, and Clementine had never actually learned to blow bubbles once with gum in her life…so no wonder that game abruptly ended with them both breaking out in laughing fits by Clementine accidentally spitting hers half out in a failed attempt to blow such bubbles, and the gum hit Luke right in his eye.

"See Clem, ya see? This is why we can't have nice things!" Luke said, the words coming out as more of a punchline to a joke than at the annoyance of his poor sore eye. He was trying to lighten mood, take their minds off what'd happened earlier, and what he'd said. For a while, it worked, Clementine could pretend things were fine, that things might be looking up for them now that she was well enough to travel; Wellington felt within reach now more than ever. But as much as they wanted to, it couldn't be buried and left there.

Her friend was troubled, and there was a lot on her mind too that she couldn't hold off on as their small moment of peace passed them by.

"Were they going to Wellington?"

It hadn't taken Luke long to realize who the 'they' was that she was referring to, giving only a moment's pause before he carried on stoking that fire to keep the flames high.

"I don't think so; they weren't dressed like travelers, and you don't see groups that big on the road much nowadays," had been his answer.

However much ground they'd covered, Clementine had still heard the dead in her mind; the loud metal clashes at that fence; the sickly cracking of ribs and bones from that dead girl and the other children being slowly crushed. Clementine didn't think she would forget about it for a long time.

She'd drawn her knees up to her chin, watching the fire be fed a new patch of brochures Luke had tossed in, smiling families burnt away to embers within seconds.

"They were shot," Clementine had said

"I know," her friend replied.

They'd watched the fire, speaking out on nothing else over that herd. She never asked if they could've come from Wellington, or if the people who killed them were still around. Clementine remained silent even as Luke finally chose to stand, taking his gun with him.

"I'll keep watch for a while. Get some rest"

Clementine hadn't, not much. She didn't sleep well that night while her friend stayed on guard by one of the windows until the early hours, as if anticipating the herd's return, or another danger that would arise to force them to flee for their lives all over again. Nothing happened, no monsters, only ghosts. From what rest Clementine did gain that night, she was frequently woken by the recurring dreams of seeing those children from the herd, alive and screaming for help at the fence; sometimes the children had taken on the appearance of her old school friends, of Duck and Sarah, Ben…

The worst nightmares were always those when she was back at home, being in an empty house, or seeing her parents leaving in their car where she would race out to stop them. Clementine never could catch them, and the dreams ended more or less the same; Mom and Dad would simply disappear, leaving Clementine on her own. She would call out to them, search high and low to track them down, until she could do nothing other than cry, begging for her parents to come back.

* * *

Although they were making good progress on their journey, their situation didn't get any brighter. Over the days things got worse, much, much worse.

Their first string of bad luck came when they got ambushed by bandits threatening to shoot the pair where they'd been standing. Clementine and Luke were only fortunate enough there were so many cars around to find cover behind, allowing them to run into a nearby convenience store where they barricaded themselves inside its storage room by bringing one of the heavy shelves down on that door. The group had still been trying to break in there as she and Luke climbed out that high window her friend had to give her a boost up to reach. They got away unscathed, but Luke lost his rucksack in the process, having needed it to stand on so he could jump and climb out too; they couldn't risk going back for it…

That evening they stopped to rest at a gas station, Luke refused to eat anything, trying to ration what they had, which was only one can of sprouts and the other a can of corn; it was all the food Clementine had in her backpack, because most of their food was back in Luke's rucksack. All he had left to show for his desperate actions was their map, the machete on his back, and their stupid toothbrushes he'd kept in his coat pocket, with a box of matches.

Her friend wasn't happy about it, angry at himself for hours after the incident Clementine was almost afraid to talk to him. They were in trouble again, neither said it, but they were.

"You should eat some too, Luke."

Leaning over the counter by the cash register, he'd snapped out of just staring off into space, or rather, staring at those empty aisles and freezers once containing snack foods and drinks of all sorts, now only accumulating dust and dead insects. All gone, nothing was here.

"Huh, what?" Luke's phrasing voiced confusion behind it; he hadn't been paying attention.

Motioning to that open can of corn with her spoon, Clementine had repeated her words again, but he only shook his head that time. "No, no I'm fine."

"But you're bigger than me," she'd insisted. "You gotta eat too-"

"I said I'm fine! Quit yer whinin' alright!" Luke practically yelled at her, enough to have made her jump. His temper diminished by her alarm, his tired features untensing, and he'd soon buried his face in his hands, a voice carrying defeat. "Jesus, don't be lookin' at me like that…I can make it one night without a meal. _I'm fine._"

It wasn't rationing. He'd lost most their gear and he was blaming himself, that's why Luke wouldn't eat. That wasn't a good enough reason to Clementine, no. Having been sitting crossed-legged on the counter by the window where the lottery scratch cards dispenser was, she'd scooched over to be closer to her friend. And there, she'd set the can of corn down, the sound of the tin making contact with that dusty counter gaining Luke's attention.

"You don't eat, I don't eat," she'd said.

He'd studied that can, then looked at her, his face blank as a slate.

"That blackmail?"

"Yes."

"Don't be like that."

"Then don't be stupid."

"Will when you stop bein' a pest." Irritably, Luke had rubbed his tired eyes. "I don't need lectures, not from you."

Clementine had remained defiant, continuing to keep that spoon held out to her friend.

"Then eat some."

She really thought he wouldn't, not with how long Luke left her hanging. Just as Clementine was considering giving him another talking to, or just leaving the food there where it was, Luke finally refocused on her and the offered piece of cutlery. It wasn't too long after he'd plucked that spoon right out from her hand, and grabbed the can, scrapping around inside for the corn he was unwillingly being forced to consume.

"Cheat," he'd grumbled.

The following day came their second string of bad luck. They were somewhere between fifty to sixty or so miles from the city of Columbus, when stumbling across a disturbing discovery, something similar to what she'd seen in one particular street of Savannah. It was a graveyard of decomposing heads, stuck up on poles and sticks by their necks outside a fence to some fortified junkyard or what'd once been used as one. There must've been hundreds there that Clementine counted, people killed and stuck on display like trophies, other than just a warning. Many of the heads were still _alive_, re-animated, the snapping together of teeth replacing the typical groans and croaks when the dead reacted to their presence, still craving flesh, even without stomachs.

Molly's talk of how the burdens of Crawford were killed and displayed in a barricade of bodies and impaled on spikes came flooding back. That graveyard of walker heads screamed danger to Clementine, and she and Luke were wise to turn on their heels and leave when they did. Too bad for them, they hadn't left fast enough, because they were spotted from somebody inside that junkyard, patrolling the fence.

Shouts alerting others to their location, a whole bunch of men and women came after them in their numbers, most laughing and taunting as guns and arrows were fired at both her and Luke while they had run for their lives.

One of those arrows, it'd speared right through the side of Clementine's backpack, impaling it to a nearby tree; a few inches more, and the arrow would've ripped through her coat, hitting her instead, but it missed, allowing her to wriggle her arms free from the straps of her backpack and keep running.

"Come out handsome! Where are you and your little girl at!?" one of the women had called out like a drunk partygoer from somewhere nearby, the other bandits shouting for her and Luke to give themselves up; it'd only driven them both to keep moving as they were pursued through the dense woods. The duo nearly got caught too, and probably would've been killed by those people, if they hadn't hidden themselves inside a storm drainage pipe beneath a road Clementine had only by chance noticed, the thing mostly shrouded by the foliage of those woods and snow; they were careful to hide their tracks.

They'd stayed hidden in there a long time, lying flat on their stomachs on the frozen ice in that concrete pipe, the both of them were freezing while they listened to those bandits come and go in their search of the area. When the light started to fade from the day and the voices were long gone, the arm wrapped around her back to keep her warm moved away, a signal from Luke it was time to leave, and with chattering teeth they'd emerged from their burrow of safety.

In times like those, Clementine struggled to figure out who were the lesser evil between the dead and living, and if there were any good people left in the world besides them; it didn't feel it anymore. All because of others wanting them dead, Clementine's backpack was gone too, and with it, the morphine for her pain, and that gross can of sprouts that was their only source of food left.

"Is this right anymore?"

"What do you mean?"

"Goin' to Wellington; maybe we shouldn't."

They had come to a crossroad early next morning, clear skies over a snowy countryside muted of color, a low mist having swept over the land like a heavy flood with no one and nothing for miles. The road signs marked the way, and they knew which direction they were supposed to go, yet Luke…

"Seemed like a good plan before; been tryin' to convince myself every shitty day it still is, but I ain't sure no more, Clem," her doubting friend had continued on with, taking in the sight of that smog ridden ground as he'd remained rooted there at the intersection where those roads converged. "We lost _everybody _gettin' here, and we're barely hangin' on. I don't know if we're way in over our heads or what. Maybe we should just turn back, and find someplace else to go."

The view of the road behind them from where they had just come from looked ghostly, their tracks still in the snow, leading off to where their prints became obscured by the low mist. The very idea of turning around had caused for Clementine to dig her heels into the ground. "But Wellington's not that far; we can make it."

"And if things ain't peachy when we do?" Luke had asked, the snow crunching underfoot when he'd turned to look back at her, hair unkempt and bags under his eyes from where he'd been up most the night unable to rest. "We're out of food, and we ain't been lucky catchin' game in these parts, not yet, and things ain't gettin' much warmer...tryin' to think ahead here is all, damn well ought to have sooner.'

Her fingers pinched at the strap of the flask hung across her shoulder; Luke had one too, found in a small store they'd slept in the previous night, and found not much else of use, nothing to eat. By then morphine in her blood had worn off, and Clementine was in a great amount of pain again from her stump phantom limb, something she could've done without in that time and place, along with the hunger already becoming a menace to her stomach.

"We'll find more food, like those fruit bars, and the truck. There'll always be something," Clementine had tried to say encouragingly.

"That's not…damn it kid, that ain't what I'm saying! We're treadin' thin ice here, I need ya to get that," Luke had replied, the harbored frustration ever present on his face also in his words. "We're puttin' ourselves on a one-way ticket someplace and we don't know what's there. I ain't saying we give up, maybe we just put it off til the weather's better, when we're better prepared."

"And go _where?_"

"Shit, I dunno, _anywhere!_"

Clementine had thought of her home back in Georgia in that instant, of running back up the steps to her house again. She missed it, dipping her feet in the cool water of the swimming pool in summer, playing with her friends on the tire swing, the time her Mom told her off for getting paint on her new dress, or mud on her shoes, or cheering with her Dad for his favorite baseball team on TV, even though the sport wasn't her thing. It was so far away now, and Clementine would never see it again, never go home…it wasn't home anymore without her parents there.

They kept going because of wanting a better life. If not for Carver, things might've been different; more of their friends might've survived. If they turned around, then all of it would feel like it was for nothing, everybody would've died for nothing. If Wellington ended up being nothing but a stupid fairytale, so be it, but at least then they would know that it was, and either way if it were true, they would still end up drifting, traveling nowhere.

"Anywhere we go will be the same. We won't be any better off," Clementine had said glumly, before locking with her friend's gaze. "We just have to be brave, Luke."

Her reasoning seemed enough not to be argued with, but not enough for him to be convinced. Stressed and probably as hungry as Clementine was, she'd watched as Luke paced off to the side, his hands having rested interlocked at the back of his tousled hair. When he at last turned around and spoke, it was like someone at the end of their tether, or, whatever that phrasing meant.

"It's your call, kid. What do you wanna do?" Luke asked.

Clementine's mind was already made up, her answer given in the form of taking those bold steps forward, towards the road they needed to take to their destination. She'd stopped after so many steps, having waited for her friend to follow, and he did.

* * *

Food...just thinking of the word hurt Clementine's stomach.

Their rifting through buildings, abandoned and wrecked vehicles beyond disrepair turned up nothing; there was no food anywhere. She and Luke had tried their best, yet failed to catch anything wild to eat, going so far as to waste a few valuable bullets trying to shoot down a grey fox that scampered out into the undergrowth where they were unable to follow. There were rats sometimes, lots of rats, but with the dead and corpses around for the critters to feed on, along with whatever germs they carried, the pair couldn't risk it.

It had gotten so bad, Luke told her off for eating leaves, warning her that some might make them sick, yet not being so sure himself which ones were safe or if they'd gain any nutrition from it. Water was all they had to fill their stomachs, and…and bugs, _spiders_. It was never enough, every morning they woke starving and with less energy to get them through the day. More and more was it a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other.

They hadn't eaten in a week, seven whole days. Clementine had gone hungry many times before, the longest being at the Motor Inn…but this? She could feel herself wasting away, getting weaker. Her clothes became loose on her, her body thin from lost fat and muscle. And Luke, he looked just as bad too. He tried not to complain about it around her, their conversations having already thinned down the very basics of communication, and the few irritable exchanges brought on from hunger and exhaustion. In their malnourished states, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find their way to Wellington, even with a map at hand, more than once did they get lost, taking a wrong road or a shortcut that turned into anything but, with herds of walkers and a few glimpses of other survivors from a distance having them duck and cover, or take larger detours as to avoid them. If it weren't for that compass in Clementine's coat pocket, they wouldn't have even known if they were still going north.

They hadn't seen the sun in days, a thick blanket of clouds blocking out sky prominently as the snow and cold bore down on them through each passing day as they burnt down the miles. That morning they woke early to a blizzard raging outside. She and Luke had watched it from the safety of a Motel room window for nearly half the day, hoping it would die off, but it only seemed to be getting worse. There was only ten miles left to go, and at the risk of starvation…when they caught a brief break in the weather, they took advantage of it and got on the move ASAP.

The wind picked up again while they were on the road hours later; no buildings, no cover, nowhere for them to get out of snow and sleet hitting their faces, robbing them of warmth. It was a fight to keep going, and so easy for Clementine just to think about giving in. But they were so close to Wellington now, too close to turn around and go back the way they came.

There was no going back.

It was so cold out, her every step near to being dragged, with those powerful winds threatening to push Clementine down as she was hit with heavy lashings of snow. It was like being inside of a tornado, she had to keep one arm raised to shield her eyes from the elements, the visibility so bad that she could barely see Luke a few feet ahead of her, enduring that same battle to not let winter take them before they reached their goal. Yet little by little, the distance between them was growing as she fell farther and farther behind, struggling to keep up. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going.

A strong gust of wind suddenly swept through that empty landscape, forcing open the hood of her coat and hitting her face with a cold slap. Shivering, Clementine stopped to pull her hood back up, when something else came free from the top of her head. In a rush of panic, she looked over her shoulder, instantly spotting that irreplaceable keepsake she cherished most being carried off by the invisible hands of that taunting blizzard.

Her hat, Dad's old baseball cap.

"NO!"

Clementine went running for it, but it was already far out of her reach before she could even make a grab for it. She ran on stiff legs, trying to catch up. No good, every second that hat was being lifted higher and farther away into the sky, and in the end she stumbled and collapsed onto her knees, unable to do anything other than watch the last thing of her Dad's disappear into the whiteness of the storm…

_**'If you like it that much, then it's all yours; you can have it.'**_

_**'Really!?'**_

_**'Sure, it can be an early birthday present. The thing's been sitting on that shelf gathering dust for long enough, and it looks much better on you than in some collection; take it…just um, don't go giving it away to any of your friends, or trading it for cards! It has to stay in the family, okay?'**_

_**'Heheh, okay!'**_

"Dad…"

Clementine wobbly hauled herself up onto her feet, pushing herself to go after that hat with everything in her. Clementine had to get it back, she couldn't lose it again!

She didn't get far. Luke, he quickly put an end to her plans, grabbing Clementine before she could go anywhere.

"Clementine! Clem STOP!"

She struggled against her friend and her own stubbornness, her knees soon giving out, and this time she wasn't able to stand again. Low on energy as she was, Clementine still tried to break free; it wasn't too late.

"My hat! I gotta get it back! _I have to!_"

"It's gone, Clem! There's no findin' it in this!" Luke yelled through those loud winds, his face gaunt from the lack of food, yet his expression still harboring that of pity for knowing what that hat meant to her. "We gotta keep movin' okay, or we're gonna die out here!"

Only by hearing that, did it subdue Clementine enough to stop, knowing it was the truth. Still, no truth was enough to prevent her from scanning that blizzard, praying with the tiniest bit of hope that the winds might somehow bring that old baseball cap of her Dad's back to her, and that she'd see it out there somewhere. But Clementine may as well have prayed for it to have rained gold, because she could see nothing but the snow and harsh winter that would be the death of them if they tried to go looking for it.

Her hat was gone, and it was never coming back.

"But, b-but I need it..."

"I'm sorry," was all Luke could really say on helping her up, before his arm hooked behind her knees and the other over her back and he lifted her off from the ground. "C'mon, I'll carry you for a bit. Looks like you could do with a time out, kid."

It'd been an effort for him to do that and to pick her up, that for a brief second Clementine thought Luke was going to drop her as he'd once rudely done in the woods months before. Though even as that fear of such a thing happening passed, and Luke held her close enough to keep her warm, there was still that defiant part of Clementine that wanted to stand and keep walking, so she wasn't a burden to her friend who was suffering just as much.

Yet her voice came out sounding as nothing more than the broken frustration of the child that she was, as she'd wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I can walk, Luke."

She heard him give a dry laugh, a tired sort, as he'd continued to carry her through that vicious blizzard. "Don't go startin' that again."

Luke never listened, and eventually Clementine gave up asking for him to put her down. He walked as if she was the weight of heavy rocks, no ease as he pushed on through the weather, and complaining about the cold, but not much else. Clementine's eyes remained cast on the road behind them over her friend's shoulder as he carried her the whole way, still ever watching for the baseball cap in that storm she knew she was never going to be hers again.

'_I wanna go home…'_

* * *

The morning her parents went, it'd been really warm and sunny. It was early, that time of day when the sun hadn't yet risen any higher than those rooftops, creating shadows that stretched across the street that were the last escape from that already sweltering heat. People were out checking the mail, walking their dogs, or heading off to work. She really hadn't cared.

Clementine could still remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs in her unicorn pajamas, both hands tucked under her chin, staring enviously at that pile of luggage by the front door with everything packed and ready to go, none of which had been hers; she'd been really sad about that, _really_ sad.

Sandra, a babysitter all the way from Marietta had already come over, intending to stay that whole week looking after Clementine while her parents went off to Savannah. They'd been talking in the kitchen over some morning coffee, both Sandra and Mom; her Mom was going over the schedule with the young college student in very fine detail as to when Clementine was to be dropped off and picked up from school, what she was to have in her lunchbox and to eat at dinner and to what time she had to be tucked in for bed at night.

While Clementine had listened to Mom go on over that long list of all the sugary snacks and drinks she wasn't allowed, all her innocent eight-year-old mind could think about, was just trying to figure out which bag of luggage she could sneak into without her parents noticing she was inside it. Unfortunately, Dad was to foil her attempts of self-smuggling, sunlight flooding in through the open front door as he'd stepped inside, sending a smile her way before calling out to Mom.

"Car's ready hon!"

"Okay be right there!"

Clementine had really hated saying goodbye to her parents that day. As a family, they had never been apart for so long before and the idea of spending the week without them was just too scary a thing to her then. If she'd really been misbehaving, Clementine might've tried to pierce the tires of their car with one of Grandma's old knitting needles as she'd thought about doing at the time if it got them to stay. They would've been angry with her, maybe grounded her and cut off her pocket-money too, but, at least they would have been with her at the start, and not hundreds of miles away.

"Are you sure I can't come?"

"Sweetie we've discussed this; we can't go taking you out of school again. And this trip is special for your father's and my anniversary, you know that," Mom had reminded her as she had many other times before, yet it hadn't gotten any easier hearing it.

So silly Clementine was in holding out for her parents changing their minds last-minute, she'd gone to help carry out Mom's small travel bag as they were taking their luggage out to be loaded into the trunk of their car. That little plan of hers wasn't a success, and there she'd been with them outside their house, the pavement heating up beneath her bare feet in the heat of that morning sun, soon to be seeing Mom and Dad off whether she wanted them to go or not.

"But I'll be good, I will! You won't even know I'm there," Clementine begged with the biggest puppy eyes she could muster. "Pretty please?"

"I'm sorry, Clementine, but you're staying; that's just how it is," Mom had said more strictly, as if her word was final on the whole thing. But when she'd looked down at her, Mom's face had softened again on viewing Clementine as the little girl she had been, one almost close to tears. It hadn't been long before her Mom had bent down to draw Clementine into her arms, for what was unknowingly their last embrace. "Oh Clemmy, please don't get upset; we won't be gone long. Your father and I will call you every day to check up on you, and you can call us anytime you like as well, whenever you want sweetie."

"Except after nine," her Dad had added when closing the car trunk shut with everything set to go, wiping the sweat on his brow before giving a teasing wink to his partner. "That's Mommy and Daddy's time."

"Ed!"

"What? She's not gonna get it, relax."

"Don't tell me to relax mister. You need reminding who's responsible for me having to impose the 'no swear rule' in our household after our little pumpkin learned a naughty word? Hmm?"

By the porch, dressed in her pleated skirt and fancy tank top, Sandra had snickered at the couple's bickering, quick to have covered her mouth with a small cough as Mom had shot a look over at the babysitter, who might've very well earned herself a reduction in her pay by the end of the week, _if_, she had ever gotten paid…

"Anyway, Sandra will be here if you need anything, and she'll take good care of you. So don't worry, you won't be alone." Having cupped Clementine's cheek, Mom had brushed the tears away with one thumb, giving her a light kiss on the forehead. "We'll be back before you know it; you'll be fine."

Clementine had watched her parents drive off after waving them goodbye, still standing on the sidewalk as their car had turned the corner down the far end of that street, and disappeared behind the houses of their distant neighbors. Even as Sandra called her in, Clementine remembered still wishing that they would turn around and come back. Yet the hours went on by as she looked out those windows, seeing the street come alive with people going about their lives, and her wish never came true.

Mom and Dad had kept their word about the phone calls. They rang home every evening before she went to bed, with Mom often having talked for ages about their time in Savannah and of all the funny little details too, although, not the special grown-up ones. While her dad, he had been more of the one to check in on how she was doing at school and with her friends, but he also made a lot of jokes too, like if she had redecorated the house yet, something Mom had been nagging him about helping her do for months.

Their last conversation together was the day before her parents were meant to come home. It hadn't really been anything all that special, and Dad, he couldn't even come to the phone because he was in the shower at the time. But Clementine still remembered hearing his bad singing from over the phone that she and Mom had giggled over a lot.

"Oh you would've loved seeing the sunset over on the bridge today; your Dad wouldn't stop taking pictures of it, or of me! I swear he was driving me insane with that thing, clicking away all the time; you know what he's like," Mom had said so fondly Clementine could hear the smile in her voice on the other end of that line. "So how was your day? Did you have fun with Sandra? I heard you baked cookies after school."

Home-made chocolate chip cookies, they definitely hadn't looked like cookies; the mixture had been a splushy mess that'd gotten burnt in the oven because she and Sandra left them in too long, so they'd both gone to the grocery store and bought some cookies from there instead. The conversation with the young babysitter on the walk home had been funny to recall.

_**'Um say Clementine, do you mind doing me a really nice favor and not tell your mom I nearly burnt the kitchen down? She's still mad at me as it is breaking those expensive glasses, and I'm really trying here. Think you could just keep it a secret? I'll buy you something from that ice cream van over there if you do!'**_

Clementine had glanced over her shoulder across to where Sandra was on the couch eating one of those supermarket baked cookies and watching TV, some soap opera that she remembered clearly made her want to puke over how cheesy it was.

She'd given ice stick in her mouth a chewing to, before answering her Mom.

"Yeah, we did; they were really good."

Upon hearing that, Sandra had given Clementine a thumbs-up and a smile along with it.

"That's great! I can't wait to…oh shoot, I'm sorry I'm getting another call coming through; it's probably work again. Listen, me and your father are going to be calling it early tonight so I'll speak with you tomorrow before we leave, okay? Is that alright sweetie?"

"Um, yeah it's okay."

"Good, alright well we'll see you soon. Love you pumpkin!"

That was the last time Clementine ever heard her Mom's voice, before the call ended, without the chance to say goodbye. She regretted not calling back.

The very next day on that Saturday, the reports started coming in on the TV about crazy people attacking others, killing them, _eating _them. It'd been like something from the horror movies her parents wouldn't let her see, and that's what Clementine had first thought it to be when coming down those stairs after waking up that morning. But upon finding Sandra pacing back and forth in the kitchen trying to call her own family in Marietta and freaking out after having been bitten on the arm from 'some creep' standing on the lawn that morning, Clementine realized that it was all real.

When Sandra started freaking out about the dead outside, Clementine gotten scared and had climbed up into her treehouse and hidden in there as screams and gunshots broke out in her neighborhood. She'd seen it all from that wooden window strangers and neighbors she once knew running for their lives out on what she could see of the street from her backyard, many speeding off in cars and fleeing on foot from the dead and loved ones who no longer recognized them. She'd heard Sandra scream too, but Clementine was too scared to help, afraid that she would be attacked by the monsters too that were chasing everybody else, and so she had covered her ears and blocked out as much as she could.

That treehouse she'd come to hate so much, it'd saved Clementine's life, kept her hidden from the dead that couldn't reach her. The only times Clementine was to ever venture down was to get the hammer from Dad's toolbox in the garage, and some food and fruit boxes from inside the house. She didn't go back in over those two days until Lee appeared, not even to go to the bathroom, frightened by the amount of blood in the kitchen, and the sound of somebody walking around upstairs who didn't respond to Sandra's name. Unable to locate the phone before she'd scrammed, Clementine had taken the walkie-talkies from the kitchen drawer, leaving the other one switched on inside for her parents for when they arrived home, so she could call to them and let them know where she was.

Clementine never wanted to accept Mom and Dad could already be dead. She was certain back then that her parents were still alive like she was, just trying to get back home from Savannah to be with her. Even by the second night she'd kept listening for their car, waiting to hear the vehicle pulling up out front. Those cold nights she'd fallen asleep curled up in a ball, after crying for hours clutching onto that walkie-talkie, how many times had she pressed that bright red button to call out to her parents, praying to hear their voices again? How often did she wake up tricked from a dream that they had come home?

"You've been, all by yourself through this?"

Clementine remembered her first memories of Lee, that man from the woods. She was out there because she needed to pee, too scared to go back in the house, and worried her parents would be mad she went out in the backyard. It'd become a routine, sneaking out into the woods through a loose board in the fence, and ensuring there were no monsters around before she did her business. The loud bang of a gun had startled her when on the way back to the fence, somebody shouting in distress, and when Clementine went to investigate, she'd spotted him from far off.

The man with a shotgun was all she had time to focus on when he'd shouted at her for help and she'd panicked and ran away. Being there then with Lee, face to face in her house after what happened to Sandra, Clementine had seen a great kindness in that stranger, a great deal about him from the way that he spoke reminding her of Dad.

Her babysitter was dead, but she wasn't really her babysitter anymore. Clementine understood Sandra had turned into a monster too and if she hadn't helped Lee, he might've died. Lee wasn't a bad person, he was a good guy and she realized she didn't have to be afraid anymore.

"Yeah, I want my parents to come home now."

There'd been a flash of emotion across Lee's face, surprise of a sort. And then he'd looked down at the floor, a grave sadness in his dark brown eyes. "I think that might be a little while, you know?"

She'd grasped her left arm, tears threatening to spill as the truth hit her with what she'd already known. Clementine had already been waiting so long.

"Oh..."

From where he was kneeling, Lee had come closer with words of warmth and support, words that were enough to stop her from crying on the spot when her gaze turned away from his blood-stained shirt, to the lifeless body of Sandra, no longer the young woman who had laughed and taken care of her just days before.

"Look, I don't know what happened, but I'll look after you until then."

Lee, if he hadn't found her and taken her by the hand, Clementine might have died up in that treehouse years ago, or out on the streets if she'd gotten brave enough to leave. She'd thought about it more than once, even after leaving her home. He had been there with her for only a few months, almost the blink of an eye, but she owed him too much that could ever be said in words. She missed him nearly every single day, as much as she missed her parents, because that's what Lee meant to her by the end when he died in Savannah. He was her family.

He said…Lee said he believed things would get better someday, that there would have to be something beyond all this, and Clementine liked to believe in that too. Wishing for brighter days, it was better than giving up and just waiting to die. For years she had lived to survive, her old life up in a treehouse, trying to hold onto what made Clementine, _her_. She was still waiting, longing for the day when she would finally be able to set her feet down on the ground and live again, _really_ live again.

Maybe someday, she would.

* * *

_**'Do you think things will ever be normal again? Just like the way they were before?'**_

_**'Yeah. It may take a while but yeah, I do. Don't you?'**_

_**'I hope so…'**_

_**'That's good. You hold onto that hope. It's the one thing none of this can take away.'**_

* * *

"Clem, Clementine."

The blizzard was gone, the snow no longer being harshly blown in her face or eyes by those hurricane-type winds once making it so difficult to see. The night sky was now clear, so crystal clear of everything that when Clementine awoke she saw stars, hundreds of thousands of stars suspended above, unspoiled by the light population of the old days, with the face of that small silver moon lighting up the wintery landscape submerged entirely in snow.

Luke wasn't walking anymore.

Blinking with tired eyes Clementine lifted her head up from his shoulder where she had been sleeping, and looked up at her friend puzzled for why he was just standing there, refusing to carry her any farther.

"What is it?"

Luke didn't answer; there was no need to, for Clementine soon saw what he was staring at all the way down that long road that they had been travelling on for miles. It stood out against the whiteness of that fresh snow, extending its reach beyond the backdrop of those bare trees. It was a wall, the strangest wall she'd ever seen, built up of all kinds of bricks and stones, but a wall it definitely was. In the middle of that snow clogged road, where the wall had been built across like some barrier cutting through the land, there was what looked like a large metal gate.

It was this, and the road sign Clementine spotted not far from them that had her sitting upright in her friend's arms, her eyes growing wide as the breath caught in her throat at the words written there in bold white letters.

_Wellington._

"Can you stand?"

Clementine nodded, soon taking those first wobbly steps forward after Luke put her down and she gazed at the wall far in the distance, hiding the sights of that town beyond it. Surreal, Clementine couldn't even explain it, the sacrifices made for them to finally be here. They'd made it, after it took so long to reach it, they were really here!

But no smile was to dawn on Clementine's face, too tired and too hungry to muster one, and there was something else too. With all the searchlights she could see, not one of them was illuminated. Even by that gate where she thought she could make out some crudely-made watchtowers, it was too far away to tell if anybody was up there. Everything around the gate and walls were deserted too, with not a single person out on patrol.

As glad as Clementine was to see it, Wellington just looked empty, as if there was no life there at all, abandoned with no one there like back in the hospital, or overrun like Crawford…

Clementine didn't like this.

"It's dark."

"It would be if they're smart; light attracts lurkers, remember?" Luke said as he joined her side. Although Clementine sensed he wasn't 100% sure if that was the case. Just a possibility, that's all it was. They didn't know anything, and wouldn't until they went there to find out. For once though, she just wanted to believe it, whether Luke believed that himself or not.

"I guess…"

It was quiet that chilly night, the soft breeze almost non-existent as it blew through the bare trees. No sounds of the dead or living to be heard, not even from all that distance away from the town. If the Wellington type were indeed the smart ones, then they'd know too that keeping noise at a minimum kept the walkers away as well; that was a tactic a lot of survivors used, if there indeed were others like themselves there.

Anxiously, Clementine glanced up at her older friend. "Now what?"

"Now? Well, we go and check it out," Luke told her.

Clementine locked her heels together, a gloved hand clenched. "No backup plan?"

"Wouldn't be sayin' howdy if there wasn't one," He said.

"And is there one?" She asked.

"Sure."

"So, what is it?"

Luke managed a smile, in spite of looking as physically drained as she probably looked too. "Oh the usual; not dying, playin' it friendly, you know the drill by now…although, you mind doin' me a favor?"

"What?" Clementine asked.

Luke held out his hand. "You mind givin' me that gun? Not that I don't trust you with it, but if there's any truth in what was said, it's better I be holdin' it; rather not give anybody a good reason to go shootin' you."

He'd used up all the ammo on his gun on some walkers days ago, chucking the thing at a whole group of them when escaping out from the building they'd made the mistake of going into out of a desperate attempt to find food. Her own gun, it only had a couple bullets left too…

They would be outnumbered if anybody in Wellington. She and Luke needed to come across as trustworthy to them, and if they weren't good people, if they were bad like the many others they'd met on their journey…well, after what happened before, they couldn't afford that to reoccur here, not now, not as they were.

It was those negative thoughts that had Clementine staring up at the faint bruises on her friend's face, and the small gash on his ear too, unwilling to give him an answer, or to surrender that gun.

"Hey, don't go lookin' at me like that, I'll be careful this time; you have my word on that. You can trust me," Luke said earnestly, his hand still out to her. "Clem?"

She glanced down at the gun on her hip holster, then back to him. Hugging an arm to her waist, Clementine spoke as if she were one of her school teachers addressing a student. "Only if you get me a new hat."

"Done."

"And not pink, I hate pink."

"Gotcha."

With a final stern look up at her friend, and not detecting a single trace of a lie on his face, Clementine undid the holster carrying the gun and passed them over to Luke, praying she wouldn't regret it.

As soon as he was done buckling that thing around his waist, Luke knelt down to speak with her at eye level. "Okay so, gonna set a couple ground rules here in case things go south, you all ears?"

"Yes," Clementine said with a nod.

"Good," her friend dawdled for a bit, looking immensely tired as he scratched his stubbly jaw line. "Just, don't be pullin' any crazy shit that'll get ya killed, alright? If I tell you to do somethin', you do it, like if I say run, you run. Just focus on gettin' yerself outta there if you have to, don't go worryin' about me."

"Only if you run too," Clementine said, adamant and unwavering.

"Yeah, I will be," Luke promised.

"And, no stupid crazy stuff."

"Ye…didn't I just say that?"

Clementine felt inner joy at what a dummy he sounded like then. She paused for a second as something pleasant came to mind, something that Sarah…

"A bike."

"Eh?"

"If it's nice there, I want a bike; a really shiny one."

Luke stared at her incredulously. "Seriously? There gonna be a blackmailin' around everything now? This is serious."

Clementine scowled. "I _am_ serious."

"Ah…okay, _fine_; I'll get you a bike somehow too, jeez," Luke said, exasperated in giving into her demands. Lightly he ruffled the top of her scruffy hair, much to her dislike. "Just be keepin' yourself safe, okay? That's all I'm askin'; would like to keep my little sidekick in one piece, y'know?"

Clementine felt a smile tug faintly at the corners of her mouth, the first smile she'd given her friend in days. "Who's says _I'm _the sidekick?"

That hurt his superhero ego, enough that he looked genuinely surprised, if just for a few seconds before Luke mustered the vague presence of a smile. Quick he was to get his revenge, ruffling up her hair some more.

"Ya damn squirt."

The truth was Clementine didn't really care about the bike; she wasn't even sure if she was still capable of riding one with her arm the way it was. Clementine just wanted something to look forward to, anything to take her mind off the hunger and fear of what they both might soon be walking into. If things didn't turn out okay for them here, then this really would be it for them. She and Luke were at their limits, there would be no coming back from this, no backup plan.

This was it.

Clementine watched Luke straighten up, turning towards the darkest reaches of that wall beneath those stars, studying it with that same lacking optimism she herself had little of. "Guess we better be on our way then."

"Yeah," Clementine agreed quietly, and they soon were to be making tracks again, walking alongside each down that road to discover what was to be found at the end of it and their perilous journey to the north.

In the end after everything that'd happened and all they'd lost, all they really had to rely on was each other. There were too many lives snuffed out, families, friendships buried in the ground; there was only one thing left important to Clementine in this world, that meant more to her than breathing and keeping the memories of everyone else alive…and she wouldn't trade it for anything else, not even for something as shiny as a brand new bike. Whatever happened, would happen, and if she lived or if she died, Clementine would make sure for as long as she could that she didn't lose another friend.

A look up at Luke as they walked steadily on through that star-lit night in silence, with every step bringing them ever closer to Wellington, Clementine eventually plucked up the courage to do something she hadn't done since she was younger. She reached for Luke hand, her fingers curling slowly around his, causing her friend to glance down briefly to her in mild surprise. But that surprise was to go, with warmth and reassurance in its place as Luke closed his hand around her smaller one, squeezing it gently.

"You be stayin' close, alright?"

Clementine nodded with the sincerest smile, no longer feeling as afraid for what waited for them at Wellington, because they would look out for each other no matter what. They were a team now, and a team always stayed together.

She expressed that gratitude for that friendship in a single word, one Luke would understand.

"Ditto."

* * *

_[To be continued in: Skin-Deep]_


End file.
